


The Dragon in the Basement

by Wannabe_Mangaka



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Art, Bloodlust, Card Games, Character Death, Depression, Drunk Sex, F/F, F/M, Fairy Tail Dragon Slayers, Family Drama, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Mild Smut, Murder, One Night Stands, Randomness, Suicide Attempt, The Author Regrets Nothing, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unrequited Love, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-04-13 17:05:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 45,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14116956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wannabe_Mangaka/pseuds/Wannabe_Mangaka
Summary: Acnologia and his magic power were always troublesome. Especially now that he revealed  himself to have survived the big fight in the ravines of time, but at a cost. This cost leading him to establish truce with the guild and over time stir up a lot of things within the guild but also himself. From family relationships, to memories of his past and a cruel, inescapable fate that could not only leave Fairy Tail, but the entire kingdom of Fiore in ruins.





	1. Prologue - When Happy Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> Hey thanks for reading!  
> Written in first person view cuz somehow it rolled off the keyboard better. Let's see where this goes.  
> Anyway, first person to realize what I'm up to gets a cookie!
> 
> Also. In later chapters I will include flashbacks and original magics and some mythology. Those will all align with my illustrated fan-made Fairy Tail spin-off Manga "King Rising" in which I'm dealing with Acnologia's past head on, making it also 100% align with canon Fairy tail manga AND anime. So if you are interested, here's the link to the Manga. News and updates, as well as shoutouts when I upload on my Twitter (https://twitter.com/Wannabe_Mangaka). Anyway, enough advertisment. I do hope you enjoy the story!
> 
> Brace yourself. Shit will be going down (read the tags to get an idea).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This will be a long story, but bare with me. I'm going somewhere with this.

\--- May, x799 ---

„Dad? “, Gajeels voice sounded through the door of the cave-designed room down in the cellar. “Dinner’s ready. Levy made Ramen.”

It was comfortable in that room, at least to me. I preferred it this way. It was quiet, mostly. Cool, and most importantly, all its walls were just like a cave. It didn’t have structure. It was wild yet calming and relaxing to be inside. I was not attuned to humanity, nor society at all. I guess that is why Gajeel and Levy are trying so hard to fix me. Granted it’s the only option they have left after they found out I survived that incident seven years ago. To this day no one except Fairy Tail and the Queen know that I am alive. That I somehow managed to find a way to survive the Ravines of Time…

“Yeah… I… I’ll be right there…”

I don’t exactly know how I managed to negotiate truce with Fairy Tail but I did it somehow. One day I just showed up there. It caused quite the fuss, and even that is an understatement. But somehow, over the course of the last seven years I managed to build up a sort of mutual trust with that guild. Makarov, still kicking it despite his age, was the pulling factor in that. And so was Levy.

Her ability to see the good in people indiscriminately was helpful. Not to mention….

That damned Celestial Mage that dares look like Anna… God damn her for twisting me!

“Tsk…”, I heard my own voice sounding through the room and the wall I punched against crack under the force.

_Was this even the right choice I made two years ago? Revealing myself to them? Everything that happened? Maybe I should have just called it quits with my life back then… NO! That wouldn’t be me. I’m the Dragon King for fuck sakes! Then again what am I doing now?_

I looked up at the wall, several rock pieces rolling over that artificial metal left hand and tumbling down to the ground. Closing my eyes, I listened to the rocks hitting the ground. I let go, letting myself fall onto the blanket I had on the ground. My room didn’t have a bed, it used to have one, but Levy decided to get rid of it after I kept ignoring it and falling asleep on the stone ground on my cape like I used to back when I was alone. The only thing in my room was the door leading to the staircase up to Gajeels house, a closet that was filled with more bottles of alcohol than clothes, a secret door created by a few guild wizards that leads out of Magnolia, a messy desk with piles of plain and messed up paper, pens and pencils (I took a liking to drawing as it was literally one of the only things keeping me entertained during all those years alone), and clothes scattered on the ground in between empty bottles of alcohol, scribbled on paper, and a few pillows and several more blankets thrown into a corner staring back at me with a memory of a knife stuck in them. I was surprised I could even see what I remember with eyes barely open and vision blurred from too much Sake in my bloodstream.

It was almost satisfying remembering that knife pierce the red pillow it was stuck in. I raised my right hand to my left side of my jaw and let my fingers run across the long, stitched wound just under it that ran from just under my ear all the way down my throat to the collarbone. One week ago, I was drunk just like now, angry, but there was nothing to let loose on. I was depressed, ready to scream out, but no one there to hear me. I was empty, and nothing to fill it. I spotted the faint red mark on the ground I left when collapsing on it. I picked up a paper, on it a picture of my family, half of the paper stained by a dark shade of red.

_Gajeel, Levy, Shutora, Yaje…_

It was made with coal. I didn't have much for colors even though I can use them decently now. A closer look revealed how many times I had crumbled it up and torn apart out of rage only to try and fix it later. Even now that half of it was stained with a deep red and the coal on that side having flown away practically erasing Gajeel and Shutora. For a second I wondered how the tape was still stuck and keeping this family together. Even if my son and granddaughter were barely visible anymore

What a pathetic King I became. Broken even more than I already was yet living a life I had always desired. A family. But here I am destroying it by letting lose on everything that allowed me to feel something and trying to drown it somehow when I started feeling too much.

Before I gained control of my intoxicated self my right arm was reaching out to the unfinished bottle of sake next to the blanket and emptying it in one breath. Despite dragon senses enhancing my eyesight to beyond human nature, my vision faded until I couldn’t even see what was on the paper I still held with my other hand. Black dots covering my field of view. The last thing I remember being conscious of was me falling over as Gajeel knocked and opened the door to my cellar room.

There I was. Drunk, lying on the floor barely conscious, with an artwork in my left hand and the third sake bottle in my right. I blinked as I could hear Gajeel calling out for Levy with some words I couldn’t understand before I lost consciousness.


	2. The Encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters will be rather long from here on out! Have fun!

\--- August of x797 ---

I was in thoughts, walking through some forest away from the roads. In thoughts of how to get out of this stupid forest without resorting to shifting into a dragon and flying off in the middle of the day. If there was a stupid idea guaranteed to get me spotted that was it. Part of me is glad I haven’t lost that ability. In fact, I even gained something again. The magic power I was born with. To this day I don’t know how exactly managed to pull myself out of the Ravines of Time alive. But I did. I pieced it together how it may have worked even though it is still a bit wonky. My guess is blaming my subconscious.

In between dying and living are a few seconds where you’re dead, but still able to cast magic. It probably is more like a split second. When I ate my way out of the ravines I already recognized the magic power. I knew I was able to do a lot more with it than just use it as a magic power boost. And it ended up saving my life. For some reason I have yet to figure out why, but in that split second, I managed to use that magic power to reset my own time a few minutes into the past while everything else just went on like it would normally.

But the biggest mysteries are still out there. That split second also saved the Ravines of Time from vanishing. They still exist, and for some reason I am still connected to them. After I came to I had a good chunk of my magic power missing and tracking it down it lead me to the ravines again. I would still consider myself more powerful than just about anyone, but I wasn’t as strong anymore. Probably also a reason for why I haven’t had the urge to hunt down the Dragon Slayers again. Anyway. The ravines are something that made even me shudder. The magic power I currently have, and three times of that is in there. And somehow its getting more, slowly.

Another mystery is why I am suddenly able to recall things I didn’t notice when I experienced them. Like making the connection from Emma to that iron guy. To think that she was his mother…

I started chuckling at my own stupidity. No wonder he looked so much like me. I never even considered the possibility that Emma may have gotten pregnant from those few occasional hook-ups in a fucking tent while out on missions getting people out of crisis areas caused by the dragon war. It must have happened one night just a week or two before I was given order to fight on the front lines. But it was right there. She had black hair and red eyes. Just like Gajeel. And him looking so much like me should have given it away the second I saw him. But give me a break. What are the chances of living for 400 years and suddenly have your children pop up in your face trying to kill you. Yes. Children. Plural. There was another one little dragon slayer with half of my genes running around. Figuring that out was a bit more of a longshot. But that extremely faint Heartfilia scent stuck to her with those same brown eyes… But blue hair. If Anna kept quiet about both their father, then I guess they never even knew they were trained to kill their own father. But then again. I didn’t know either and tried to kill them. I guess that’s also a way of calling it even.

I was suddenly ripped out of my thoughts when just in front of me a small little child tumbled down a short way down a slope in the forest. I stuck a foot out and breaking his fall. It didn’t appear to have caused any injuries. A small bruise on his left arm is all I could see. He was looking up with at me, curious, shuffling the dirt out of his short, messy light blue hair. If I were to guess his age it’d be around three years. A bit older maybe but not by much.

“Yaje! Are you alright? I told you not to run so fast to not fall and hurt yourself!” A woman with wavy light blue hair showed up from where that boy was falling from. And slid down. It wasn’t even two meters up and the slope wasn’t even steep. I took a step back from the child, realizing what was happening. A few meters away I recognized a very familiar magic power.

_Shit…_

“Thank you for breaking his fall.” She said as she picked up the boy. “That prevented some… more…” She now fully consciously looked at me, questioning my looks. Granted, it wasn’t the most usual pieces of clothing. Also, the fact that I was shirtless, my left side covered by a black cape covered in dirt. Torn pants and not even footwear. And then the markings on my face and arm. And I could tell she recognized that I looked a lot like Gajeel.

“Who are you?”

“Levy? Did you get him?”

Looking away from me, “Y-yes, Gajeel. We’re over here! He’s just fine.”

I didn’t need to look up to know that I was now also coming into Gajeels view. He froze when he spotted me, on his arms another small child.

“L-Levy. Get up here, now.” Was all he could say.

“Gajeel? What’s wrong?” She didn’t move and looked rather confused. Before she knew Gajeel jumped down too and set the girl with Levy.

“Shutora, go hide behind Mommy!” pushing the little girl, from what I could tell, her, and the boy were siblings. Twins even. Gajeel turned his face to me wanting to say something but I interrupted it.

“Yeeeaaaah, I wanted to avoid this. But I guess not paying attention to my surroundings kicked my butt just as much as that little guy’s” I said sighing, going though my hair playing around with a knot I found in them just before getting irritated by their stares at me.

“Oh, come now. Wipe that dumb look off your face. I’m not exactly happy to see you either!”

“I’m not wrong right?”

“No, you are not wrong. I am who you believe me to be.” I smirked at him letting go of the hair knot.

“Gajeel… Who… Is that?” She looked at me. She knows the feeling of my magic power but can’t pin point it.

“What business do you have alive?! You’re supposed to be dead!” he shouted at me, with a slight notch of fear.

“I’d say we’re even now. I asked myself the same question when I noticed your magic power pop back up after it got wiped out. Twice even. Tenrou Island and that Kamikaze stunt you pulled during the war with Alvarez.” Gajeel was furious by now, glaring at me. I simply shrugged and started walking. He flinched. “Life is strange, son” I said, bumping into him with my left shoulder pushing him out of the way.

“Son…?” Levy asked

“You noticed that we look very alike. That’s the reason” Levy was completely thrown off guard. Gajeel too.

“No, you are not… You are NOT my father!”

I stopped walking and turned my head to them again. I rolled my eyes, grabbed a strand of hair and cut it off earning a strange look from them. “Here. There’s a way to test it by comparing genes, right? Prove me wrong.” Levy took the strand of hair and secured it. “You find me on Zonia. See ya” I flicked my hand at them and walked off.

 

“Gajeel…? Why can’t he be your father? You two look almost identical even…”

“you didn’t recognize him, did you?” Levy shook her head.

“Wait. You were born 400 years ago, right? If he’s your father, then he must have been born in the same era. We know the only ones from that age are the five dragon slayers and Anna. But all of them are alive. That only leaves Zeref, who it can’t be… and…” She dropped her shoulders and stared at where I was walking off.

“Acnologia”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3: Revelations


	3. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also if you notice spelling errors, please let me know! Especially since in one of the future chapters I mispelled couch as cough and it made for one really awkward read.

The night was cold at Zonia mountain. It came to no surprise obviously. I was easily three kilometers above sea level in northern Fiore. Everything was white, only broken by grey rocks breaking through the snow and that one black dragon on its peak. Me. I often came here in the morning. Daily almost when I was there. Its peak peaked through the clouds that always travelled across the sky, perfect for getting warmed up. Usually coming up here meant spreading out my wings, curling the tail around the rocks and facing the sun. I was truly on top of the world. No matter if humanity believes I’m dead or not.

Having black scales sure had a few major benefits. I had no trouble in cold weather. All the ice and snow that would collect on them would start melting the second I faced the sun. Not even heat bothered me. In fact, it was useful sometimes and kept me entertained. I can make fire no problem. But where’s the joy in that? It’s much more entertaining purposefully letting my scales heat up so much that meat starts cooking on it. It was nice sometimes to have something cooked up and easy to eat. Usually I’d just eat the second I get my hands on something which more often than not ended up being raw and chewy. Anything. Even things I remember tasting disgusting when not cooked. It’s not like I was in a place to care about making food taste good.

Molten water started running down the scales and I noticed larger chunks of ice coming off and flying away in all directions as I started shaking them off. It was about time to get the day starting. At noon. I didn’t exactly have a sleep schedule. I did what I want, not bound by anything but my own set of bendable rules. I enjoyed total freedom. The only irritating thing was that missing left arm.

And that it took Gajeel almost a full month to finally show up. In human form, I made my way back down to the cave I decided to live in and waited. When he eventually showed up I had my feet kicked up the wall and stared up at the cave ceiling making the moss on it shine by shooting small packs of magic at them. Despite it being day, the cave was dark enough. It’s a rather large cave considering the entrance wasn’t all that big. Actually, my dragon form could never even dream of fitting through there, but this cave was easily large enough to fit me.

“How in the world do you manage to live here? It’s fucking freezin’”. I ignored him, instead shot up another magic bundle. Gajeel sat down a few meters away from me.

“Are you gonna talk to me?” he asked impatiently

“You sure are rude to someone that could kill you in seconds.”

“you already didn’t back in the forest. Why would you now?”

_Good point._

I shrugged and sat up. After a few seconds of him glaring at me he threw a sheet of paper to me with a condescending flick of his hand.

“Did you know?” he asked sharply. I picked up the paper, unfolded it and read. I raised my head back at Gajeel.

“How was I supposed to know? It’s not like anyone ever had the decency to tell me.” I said, returning the same aggressive undertone.

“It makes me sick to think a cunt like _you_ is a father.”

That cut it. I got up and slammed him into the ground by his throat, choking him, watching him struggle. He was strong, naturally like me, but I was still superior. I tightened my grip cutting off the little air he was able to breathe still. I enjoyed it, almost wanting to go through with it all the way.

“Watch it! Me not killing you is a choice. Don’t make me regret it.” I said bluntly. Letting go of him, Gajeel immediately shuffled back, away from me, coughing.

He didn’t say anything and simply waited until his body was back to normal after the lack of air. I got up and started heading to the back of the cave.

“If that’s everything, then - “

“It’s not. I had to tell Master where I was going off alone without having picked a job.” he interrupted.

…

“I told him that your alive. And… that you seemed different. That I’m alive is proof of it. I didn’t tell him why, though.” He paused. “Your choice… is not so much a choice, is it?”

…

“It’s because I’m your son, right? That you can’t kill me now. I can smell the blood on you. And it’s not even a week old. You are a cold-hearted asshole, but I guess even someone like you has enough morals to not hurt family. Well, in your case kill.”

I continued to stare at him for a while longer, remaining silent. Eventually turning around walking off.

“I’m right, am I? You refuse to kill family, no matter what they are to you. Honestly, you puzzle me.”

Like back in the forest I flicked my hand at him and headed deeper into the cave.

“Master Makarov wants to speak to you… I think he wants to negotiate with you.”

 “Shut up.” Gajeel almost jumped as I suddenly turned around and hit the wall of the cave with my fist. “I am not playing my chances with anything like this! I will not negotiate anything.”

“your chances… There is nothing luck based on this. You can – “

“Trust us, right? I’m not going to trust anyone that tried to kill me.”

“Oh, come on! Don’t be so hypocritical! You tried to kill us off more than once too! Besides,” he continued sarcastically, “it’s not like you didn’t start, right? Actually, now that I think about it, we always started it, right? It was so us that came after you. Tenrou, Tartaros, Alvarez. You’re absolutely right. How could I be so stupid to not notice how it was _us_ that came looking for _you_!”

He played his chances. I was furious, breathed in and roared, not strong enough to obliterate the cave. It was still my place to stay after all. After the light had dissipated enough to properly see again I couldn’t see Gajeel, but I could feel his magic having dissolved into the Ground.

_Shadow magic?_

It was a lot of magic, spread out in the Shadows. I could locate him but not pinpoint his exact location. As such being taken by surprise as he popped up behind me and kicked me hard in the guts as I turned around to block. Too late however. He didn’t manage to send me flying and I was quickly able to catch myself, but dammit, he inherited a lot of my physical power. Just like me, he looked strong, but it only scratched the surface and in terms of physical capabilities, we were almost even.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4: Black Steel vs. Black Scales


	4. Black Steel vs. Black Scales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go...

I coughed from the kick in my stomach I had received, but not letting that hold me back. Instead, counterattacking by dodging Gajeel’s next incoming attack, jumping forward, right over him and landing behind him, using the cushioning as extra force charging at Gajeel, kicking him as well. Sending him flying. Or so I hoped.

He had grabbed on to my cape, and as a result I got knocked forward just like Gajeel, ending up tumbling right out of my cave and almost over the edge, Gajeel having fallen over but still hanging onto my cape.

I grabbed my cape to release my head from carrying Gajeel (damn, he was heavy) and tried shaking him off. Gajeel now hanging on with one arm pulled his other behind him.

“ _Iron Dragon Sword_!” he yelled, as his arm charged in front, tearing off large chunks of rock off the mountain causing me to fall as well.

Both of us landing in the deep snow several meters down from my cave, just an arm’s length apart. He still held onto my cape and started to shove me around taking advantage of my weaker balancing due to only having one arm.

“You little brat!” I yelled at him, somehow managing to sneak myself out of the cape. I was pissed. I already hated the fact that my left arm was gone, it was irritating. And I hated it showing, which was why I always had my cape pulled to the side ever since I lost it. At least my necklace didn’t fall off.

Gajeel looked confused for a second, before noticing how I was radiating with fury as my hand held on to my left shoulder.

“Oh look, I found his majesty’s insecurity” he chuckled, sweat drops running down one side of his face. I gritted my teeth. “That’s what’cha get for yer arrogance against Igneel!”

I growled.

“Ya deserved it!”

I roared.

This time hitting Gajeel, him not having enough time to dodge. But he was able to block it decently well despite being pushed back several meters.

“I’ve gotten strong y’know! I couldn’t let Salamander have the title.”

_Right. I had given the title of Dragon King on to that guy thinking I’d die._

He charged up some of his magic turning his skin into steel scales, slightly purple, as he threw my cape into the snow. His magic had just gotten an enormous boost from activating Dragon Force.

_He’s getting my fucking cape wet._

I squinted my eyes as I finally showed off more of my own magic. It radiated blue from the ground letting it surge all around me.

“Do you know how long it takes to dry that cape in cold weather?”

“Do you know how little I care?”

“But you care about the firecracker kicking your ass.” I smirked.

“Unfriendly reminder, he kicked yer ass too!” and the smirk was gone.

“Well, you reminded me that I have a title to retrieve.”

We were still in a stalemate. Both of us were threatening the other, but neither of us made a move.

“Looks like you just gave me a reason to come to your guild.”

“So, all it took was scratching on your pride a bit? I feel like I should feel sorry for ya now.”

“You lived in that guys shadow all your life, that’s why you trained to get that title off of him. Who’s got the cutesy pride now?”

Now he was furious while I was grinning. He charged at me turning this encounter into a full-on close combat.

“Now we’re even on hitting sore spots.” I laughed.

Kicks and punches thrown and intercepted from both of us. Equally managing to get hits through. The problem was that his scales were almost entirely out of iron and it hurt like crap punching them. But I had easily enough force and endurance to affect him and not back down from that pain and his punches thrown at me.

I didn’t stand that we were equal now. Managing to dodge one of his punches I took the opportunity to throw him into the air and a few meters away from me giving me enough time to cast a spell. It was nothing much. Rather, it was simple enchantment. Yes, enchantment. There were a few types of magic that came extremely easy to me due to the nature of my original magic. One of those were enchantments. I crouched down touching the ground with my hand and with a speed boost threw myself at Gajeel, too fast for him to see I slashed him with my Magic.

Turning around and doing it again leaving him only able to defend as best as he could. After three or four more slashes I managed to get larger cracks into the Iron scales. I landed back on the ground on all threes, rotating as I broke the motion to face Gajeel getting out of breath from taking those hits. I was still a lot stronger in terms of magic.

“ _Iron Dragon Pillars!_ ” he shouted, smashing his hand into the ground, large metal poles shooting up, raising up the ground beneath them.

“ _Burst!_ ” I did the same. Smashed my hand into the ground, a large magic circle appeared below my feet and sent a shockwave at Gajeel whirling up the snow.

The shockwave easily smashing threw the pillars bending them and sending Gajeel flying together with the risen-up rocks into the mountain cliff.

I stood up, waiting for the snow to fall back down. I heard Gajeel falling off from where he got pushed into the stone, continuing to breathe heavily. Once the snow settled I saw him barely standing, leaning against one of his pillars, wiping blood off his face.

I let my magic die down. Without the scales of his dragon force he took the impact a lot worse than he would with the scales. I looked at him blankly.

“You’ve gotten stronger, Gajeel”

“You remembered my name…”

“Would you dare forget your son’s name?”

He stared back.

“And I thought my family was already complicated enough without a psycho-dad”

“I can tell you haven’t exactly been the nicest person ever either. We aren’t so different.”

“Yea…” he looked away. “I know…”

“Your master wants to talk to me, right?” He nodded. I sighed. “Fine, I’ll come with you.”

I picked up my cape from the snow, shaking the snow off. Luckily, it hadn’t gotten super wet lying in the snow, just a little. I put it back on sliding the knot back into position, pulling the necklace and my hair out from under it, ruffling it a little bit to get the snow in it out as well.

I waited for Gajeel to fix up a couple of wounds and went on our way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5: The Way Back


	5. The Way Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm spamming these chapters out lel. I waited one month to get an invite. I already wrote 13 chapters. What is life, lol.

We made our way back to Gajeel’s guild. Honestly, I was scowling at how long it took but we strayed away from the main roads on my request. Being called “way too antisocial” by him wasn’t too far off from the truth.

_I mean, what did he expect? Have a four-hundred-year-old dragon in human form dressed in nothing but a pair of damaged pants and a tattered cape out for all to see?_

“Tell me, does that guild have a back door or something?”

“What do you care? It’s not like you never liked to make an overly dramatic entrance.”

“This is different.” I sighed. “I don’t feel like running into any of them.”

“What? Are ya ashamed or somethin’?” he teased looking back at me with a grin.

My expression went from plain to pissed and it made Gajeel giggle like a little girl.

Somehow over the course of those 3 days we were on the way we managed to talk a few things out and even agree on certain things. We were a lot more alike than both of us thought, or wanted to admit. But there were a few things I remained quiet about.

“So,” he started crossing his hands behind his head as we took a rest again looking at the food supplies Gajeel had picked up after running out of pre-made food Levy made. “Ya never told me if the food tasted any good. I need to get back to my wife on that. She ain’t resentful at all so she quickly agreed on approaching ya.”

I looked at him and back at the food.

“She made a few different things to see what you’d like”

“Nothing in particular.” I said flatly, Gajeel dropped his head in his hands.

“Do ya even like anythin'…?” and after remaining silent… “Whatever. I’ll make some food. Looks like it’s just gonna be some grilled stuff.”

“I don’t want any.” I said flatly, got up and started walking to a tree, climbing it up and sitting down on a branch playing around with my magic.

Gajeel sighed. “You don’t eat a lot it seems. Why? Is that a dragon thing?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

I glared at him.

“Ya didn’t tell me if ya liked the food you ate, and beside that y’barely even touched any of it. I just wanna know if that’s a dragon thing or if you’ve got some eating issues. Probably eating issues, right?”

“I’m not going to tell you that.” I said sharply turning my back to him.

“Gee… Y’got some major trust issues, old man.” That’s the first time he called me that. Still.

I let myself fall forward, swinging around the tree branch, hanging down from it upside down, holding my cape in place, right in front of Gajeel.

“And how is that so surprising, huh?”

He continued to make food and let me be alone, skipping it like the days before. I only really had some food when he warmed up dinner. I smelled good and it did get me hungry a little bit.

I only interfered with Gajeel’s cooking upon noticing he was about the burn the food. I couldn’t stand it. Not that I cared for whatever he decided to eat, but because it smelled horribly. I jumped down, approaching Gajeel and shoving him to the side taking over.

“Hey, what was that for?!”

“You’re burning it. And it smells disgusting.” I said bluntly. I decided to take the food off the fire and wait a while until it died down again, then put new supplies, small vegetables and some meat pieces on the grill fork Gajeel had packed and hanged it right above the fire into the smoke, making sure the fire would stay like this.

“I suppose you haven’t packed salt or anything, did you?”

“I wasn’t expecting to be out for this long, so no.”

“Hm. Well, gotta make due.” And continued the same procedure. Eventually taking a closer look, deciding it was done and handing it to Gajeel. And from the look on his face he liked it, although he was scowling, probably because I showed him up.

At the end of the day we eventually made it to the guild and up into a small room. Because it was so late it was no problem to sneak in. Gajeel had contacted Makarov beforehand asking him to stay in late. I sat down against the wall, Gajeel on a chair at the desk while waiting for Makarov to show up from another room. It didn’t take even two minutes for him to show up, but I was still bored. And admittedly somewhat on edge. This was the first time in centuries that I was inside a building of any kind. I hated the density of the air and it made me want to jump out of the window.

“I see that you agreed to having a chat.” His old voice sounded as he opened the door. I merely looked at him coldly, while Gajeel greeted him, apologizing for how long he was gone.

It was an awkward silence that followed. My best guess was that Makarov didn’t exactly know what to say.

“I heard from Gajeel,” he finally started talking. “that you somehow managed to survive the incident with the Ravines of Time. And that you seemed different somehow. And I agree. I have never seen you in this form yet, but you do seem calmer and more reserved and not as aggressive. I don’t know if it correlates, but I don’t sense as much magic power from you as back then.”

Gajeel looked surprised. He hadn’t noticed it seems. I continued staring at the tiny old man. But he was correct. It did correlate. At some point my magic power started messing with my mind. And the more I had, the worse it got. The less I had, the calmer I was.

“I must ask however, and I would like you to answer. How come only Gajeel was able to approach you like this? I would have liked to send more, just in case but Gajeel convinced me that if he wouldn’t go alone, things would go bad.”

“The answer is right there.” I said, pointing at Gajeel and back at me, back at Gajeel, waiting for Makarov to figure it out himself. I gave Gajeel a glare to have him not say anything. I wanted to test Makarov if he could figure it out.

He looked back and forth between the two of us. He was confused at first but eventually began noticing. He stared at us for a while, possibly double checking, looking for ways he could have gone wrong. But there weren’t any. We looked alike, from facial features, only minor differences, Gajeels face being a bit sharper than mine, to hair, the way we sat which funnily enough was quite similar, the same height and body type, and even the way we dressed. Both in black attire that anyone else would have thrown out for being too torn. And the fact we both preferred having our hair untied, long and messy.

“You two… are related…?” His voice was understandable shaking. And it made me grin a little bit. Gajeel on the other hand rested his head in his hand and merely blew out air. Looking back at us he tried to figure out our relationship. And it wasn’t so hard to guess. Considering Gajeel was a child when I was already going around murdering dragons.

“You are… Gajeel’s father, aren’t you?”, he asked me carefully.

I nodded. He turned to Gajeel.

“That explains why you had those abusive tendencies back in your Phantom Lord days.” I looked up at Gajeel, who was visibly caught off guard and embarrassed from suddenly without warning being called out.

“What did you do?” I asked, raising an eyebrow (mark rather. Same thing.) and chuckling silently.

“I… uhm… almost killed the woman that is now my wife on request of Phantom Lord’s master…”

I couldn’t. I was laughing. “Man, talk about a dick move!”

“Like you’re one to talk!” he shouted back standing up from his chair. “Going around killing as you see fit!”

I got up too adjusting cape and necklace. “At least I’m not someone’s puppet like you!” I was still laughing at him. Makarov was rolling backwards in his wheelchair. He didn’t have the guts to interfere.

“Ya wanna say that again, old geezer?!” he gritted.

“Puppet master’s little metal pet.” I grinned teasing him.

We both ended up having our heads smashed together ready to throw down like at Zonia.

“You two truly have very similar personalities I must say. It surprises me almost, how much you seem to have passed on to my son here, Acnologia.”

We stopped just as we were about to start fighting and looked at Makarov. Gajeel having grabbed my hair while I held onto his Jacket. Looking back at it, it must have looked ridiculous, but also proof of how much we were alike.

“ _Your_ son?!” I questioned him, a little angry to my own surprise.

“I consider all my guild members to me my children. Even if not by blood.” Makarov responded.

“Since when did _you_ get so protective of me?” Gajeel laughed as he let go of me. I immediately threw him back.

“I did NOT!”

“Special emphasis on ‘your’ while getting angry at Gramps for callin’ me his son? Come on, ya can’t snake yer way outta this one, old man.” He grinned as he got up.

_Fuck._

Now I was standing there, Gajeel catching me accidentally showing a little protectiveness, and Makarov all there to witness it.

“Urrgh!” I yelled while burying my face in my hand and proceeding to kick a wall, only to follow up pressing my jaw to hide the pain from kicking a stone wall barefooted, much to Gajeel’s amusement.

“Yer a bit of an airhead sometimes, aren’t’cha?” he laughed. I returned the remark with a pissed off glare.

“If I may interrupt, I would like to converse with you.” Makarov rolled forward carefully approaching me. I stood up straight again and looked down on him.

“Fine. What is it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6: Time


	6. Time

“I would like to arrange truce between Fairy Tail and you. Five years ago, as you know, we only won with a ton of luck. I’m not going to play like we had much of a chance in winning against you. It really was merely luck that the plan Lucy came up with ended up working in the way we needed it to. There was a large chance that even that plan could have ended up not working. We relied on the only magic you weren’t able to break through despite your power, relied on motion sickness immobilizing you for long enough to cast Fairy Sphere, relied on Levy translating the book in time and Lucy having enough magic power to even cast it, relied on the hope that freezing you in time would not affect the dragon slayers fighting you.”

He stilled. It really was a lot of luck they had in winning against me. There was no way of knowing it would work.

“As such. I doubt we will ever have this sort of luck ever again. Especially considering that you have been separated from the ravines, all we could do now is freeze you again. But that would only delay the inevitable…”

“Makarov, right?”, he confirmed, “I have not been separated from the Ravines of Time.” Both Makarov and Gajeel turned to me. “I am still in a way connected to them. Back when I figured out how to eat them it became a part of my magic power. And in the split second before dying where I managed to make a sort of time leap, allowing me to live it also saved the Ravines of Time, as such never fully separating me from them. Only from their magic power.”

Both were visibly confused.

“Think of it this way. My magic power, and the time magic are connected through the Ravines. They now hold a good chunk of my magic power as well as the ravines power.”

“That explains why you have less magic power.” Makarov added.

“Not exactly. I have more. A lot more. Just not within me but stored in a pocket of space similarly to how a lacrima would hold magic power.”

“How much?” Gajeel asked.

“You can estimate how much I have currently?” they nodded. “Multiply that by three, and that’s how much magic power is dormant inside the Ravines.”

Both their eyes widened as I closed mine. “I only hold about a quarter of my full magic power. And your assumption was correct, Makarov. That is exactly the reason why I appear to be calmer and less aggressive.”

Both stilled for a while. Gajeel eventually breaking the silence.

“Can… Can ya control it?”

“I couldn’t back then. And I certainly can’t now. I can’t even access it.” I grabbed the chair and sat down wrong way, resting my arm on its backrest, my head on top. It was frustrating that I had so much magic power I couldn’t access. And even if, I doubt I would have any control over it. “However, there may be a way for me to access it.”

“You found a way to unlock it?” coming from Makarov.

“Not exactly. I merely know that it can be unlocked, and that when that happens I will out of nowhere suddenly have all of it. But I can’t open them, nor close. If for some reason they were to open…”

“You would lose control like back then?” I looked at Gajeel, and simply sighed when looking straight ahead again.

“That is indeed a problem. I suppose not even you want to lose control like that again, judging from your behaviour.”

I shook my head. _It felt great having that much magic power, but not being able to control caused me to mentally break down and lose all control over my magic and myself._

“Hmm… Would you allow me some time to think alone?” Makarov requested.

I gave a single nod and got up, leaving the room with Gajeel, making our way down the stairs. Gajeel first to make sure it was empty. Once at the ground floor he headed to the bar, pouring himself a drink.

“that’s a fuck ton to take in, y’know?”

“I’ll have a glass, too.” He looked at me for a second before sliding me a small glass half filled over. It smelled like Rum, but with something added to it. I couldn’t quite tell, and simply chugged it, asking for another, he hesitated, seeing I wanted another while he had barely sipped on his.

“When was the last time ya drank anythin’?” he asked pouring me another.

“Last time I got my hands on anything was… hundred years ago? I think.”

“Then yer alcohol tolerance is completely crappy!” he laughed.

“Probably.” I chuckled too.

 _Fucking hell, it’s been three days you spent with him, you idiot!_ My head backlashed.

_Relax. This is kind of good. Isn’t that what you wanted?_

_It’s not about that! What the fuck happened to your trust issues?!_

I was looking for an answer.

_Hey, calm down. You’re not revealing anything you decided to keep hidden. Besides, it’s dark, calm and quiet in here and you got yourself a son pouring you a drink or two._

_You disgust me._

_Shut up. You went nuts cuz you didn’t have anyone. Now you do. Just breeeeaaaaaaaathe, dammit._

I took a deep breath and blew it out.

“Already feeling the alcohol, huh?” Gajeel snickered. I looked at him as I downed number two quickly.

“A little. But mostly the smell gets on my nerves. This stuff smells… odd.” I said, shoving the glass away from me.

He laughed. “Ya seem more and more like an actual human being. And all it took was a few days.”

I didn’t want to respond to that. Luckily Makarov had decided to announce to us that he had come up with something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7: It Was Murder


	7. It Was Murder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7 chapters is a good place to stop spamming right? yeeeeee. Lets let you read. I'll post more soon!

Back upstairs he didn’t even waste a moment to get straight to the point.

“Considering the details about your magic power, I would like to make… a rather unusual request to you both along with forming an agreement on truce.”

Gajeel and I looked at each other, and back at Makarov.

“Acnologia… The world thinks you died five years ago. And I haven’t heard any rumors, nor news reporting about instances that would be traceable back to you. As such… I assume you don’t want to have much to do with the world and would actually prefer to lay low. Is that assumption correct?”

I thought about it for a moment. It had been a pain constantly having to fight people thinking they could snatch some high reward to one of my scales, or even my life. After all. I had rather unusual scales. Occasionally when one got replaced (yes that does happen. People lose skin particles all the time, it’s the same thing, just rare. And it’s really fucking weird. Especially when standing in front of them as a human and being smaller than them.) I had time to take a closer look at them, sometimes running my hand over the blue markings. They were like waves.

I ended up agreeing. I was sick of people thinking my scales were worth risking their lives for. I even one time attacked some people who managed to snatch one of the scales that had been replaced and got it back.

“I have two requests then. First:Would you be willing to protect Fairy Tail, if we hide your existence from the world? I’m positive I can also find things for you to do.”

“Are you asking him to join our guild, Gramps?!” Gajeel yelled.

“No. I would have to make it official. And that would reveal his identity by his name alone. And even if, it would render Fairy Tail a dark guild potentially.”

“A dark guild because of a member havin’ committed crimes? It’s not like the council hasn’t allowed me to join an official guild after all the crimes I committed…”

“If I got the right grasp on the system, I think I may be pushing that a little too far. Besides, you’ve never killed anyone.”

“No, I haven’t. But dragons don’t exactly count. I mean, Salamander has killed two dragons now. Well. One, if we count you as a dragon and ignore the fact that you’re alive.”

“Gajeel, I – “

“Sting and Rogue were boasting about killing dragons, and all of us had our fair share of kills on demons, and some of them could have passed as humans.”

“Gajeel!” he froze in place just before wanting to add more. “Do you honestly believe I’m that innocent?”

“Depends on yer definition of innocence. Murdering the dragon race and a couple people. But you are a dragon slayer. Even if that was a pretty shitty move, that’s far underminin’ it, it wasn’t considered illegal back then, nor today. And I’ve heard of people managin’ to join official guilds after committin’ murder.”

Makarov wanted to speak but I waved him off. It was mine to argue.

“I’m not sure if your ignorant or just not seeing it.” I started, looking at Gajeel coldly. I sat down. “I’ve killed people. Yes. You know that much. But a couple of people is not exactly the right words to use.”

He looked at me, silent for a while, gulping and hesitating before asking.

“How… How many?”

“I never counted, but estimating, it probably exceeds two thousand easily. Maybe even three. Honestly, I’ve lost track of it if I ever had any idea on how many… The dragon slayers from the war may have already been more than that… and that was in a time span of not more than a year. I’ve been alive for over four hundred years now, as a result, I haven’t only killed dragon slayers, but also those thinking it’s a good idea to run into me or even track me down. So, if you had hope of any of those being accidental, then no, it wasn’t. It was murder.”

Both of them froze in place, unable to say anything.

Back then, dragons were killed all the time. By other dragons, and dragon slayers. I just happened to be the most successful at it. About half way through getting rid of dragons, I myself became one through this type of mutation called ‘Dragonification’. I wasn’t alone with it. All around me I saw slayers affected by the same thing, and some who were further than me turning into the same sadistic dragons we tried to defeat.

While they didn’t eat any of us, they still killed us in pure bloodlust. As such I guess I wasn’t so different and I assume those dragon slayers had the same idea as me. Get rid of them before they can get rid of me. It was basic survival instinct. And I had a ton of that.

My entire life, ever since my family was slaughtered, was centred around somehow trying to survive. How I survived the ravines was no different. And this was no different either.

I decided I had to get rid of the other dragon slayers. And the only way to do that was to kill them. It started with a few. It wasn’t the first time I had taken human life. But it was still difficult. I didn’t know how to do it on large scale. Before it had been one or another person I ambushed.

This was different. I had to murder quickly, not waiting for them to be in the right spot for me to be able to do it. Insanity helped out there.

It didn’t take long for me to find murder fulfilling to a degree. I enjoyed it even. It became normal, and very easy. After the first couple of dozen it wouldn’t even faze me anymore.

“Anyway,” I swallowed down the grin I let out when I said that it was murder. I raised my head up again looking at the frozen and terrified look on both Gajeel and Makarovs face. “What’s that second request about?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8: Starry Magnolia


	8. Starry Magnolia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> calmer chapter i guess. but here we go!

It took Makarov a solid minute to even try to continue speaking. I honestly didn’t expect them to be this dumbstruck. I thought they could have expected a high number. Even though I was probably still ways off. I didn’t bother giving it much thought.

Makarov took a deep breath.

“at least you turned that off.”

“He hasn’t.” Gajeel protested bluntly. I hit his left upper arm. He felt it and squeezed the spot trying to ignore the pain. “He smelled of bl – “

“Would you SHUT UP?!” I yelled at him. He looked back at me, dismissively. I was pissed again.

There was silence before Makarov took over.

“I figured as much. I expected that getting you back on the right track may be extremely hard, even wishful thinking possibly. Still, I would like you to stay close to Magnolia to be able to communicate with you better. And may I ask you, Gajeel, to provide him with anything he may need?”

Gajeel thawed out.

“Yeah. Alright.” He turned to me. “Under one condition. you come down from that high ground to Fairy Tail sometimes. This is less about me, more about trying to get you used to us. Besides… Both my children, after understanding that you’re my father want to spend time with their Grandfather. They don’t know who exactly you are yet since they’re not in school.”

It was relaxing hearing him speak normally and dropping those stupid accent you-s. It’s a sign of him being serious for a change. Casually, he’d still use that accent.

“Alright. I will. Where will I be staying though? Zonia is too far away, I suppose.”

“I thought about Mount Hakobe.” It came from Makarov. “It’s similar to Zonia in terms of weather. But only about a two-hour trip away from Magnolia by carriage. Quick enough to have someone seek you out. And close enough for you to come here without having to fly and attract a lot of attention.”

“As for visiting us,” Gajeel added, “if you want to stay longer. We have an extra room in the basement of our house. You can stay there whenever you like. We’ll take all the stuff out we chucked in there when we moved in. It may just motivate Levy and me to finally get those things stored neatly.”

“I’ll come back to you on that.”

“Now, may I ask another thing of you, Acnologia?” Makarov was overly formal with me. He didn’t want to risk anything, granted. But if I wanted him dead, he would be already.

“Hm?”

“I would like to form truce between you and the members too. Not just us. At the moment the only ones knowing you’re alive is Gajeel and his family, me and you obviously. And tomorrow, I heard that our strongest team is coming back for a visit which would also include Natsu and Wendy, two dragon slayers. If you are alright with it, I’d like to clear up the situation with all of them.”

_Great. Wendy, that girl that managed to enchant magic into Natsu to allow him to fight me on a more equal ground._

“Fine.” I looked at the clock on the wall. It was already way past midnight. “I’ll be on the roof.” I said, got up and wanted to leave.

“Why not stay with us?” Gajeel protested almost. “Ya have a room, just need a few minutes to get a bit of junk out to free it up.”

“Nah… What time do you need me?” I turned around and looked at Makarov.

“Members should be assembled around noon. Honestly, if you need, just barge in from that window behind me. If I’m not there, just make yourself noticeable somehow or just wait.”

“Alright.” I said and left.

 

“What do ya think, gramps?”

Makarov closed his eyes and joined his hands in front of his face thinking.

“I’m not sure yet, Gajeel. While you are right that he seems changed, and considering he turned out to be your father, I can’t help but try to see the good in him, however little it may be. I think I can give him a chance.”

“Hm. I gave him plenty of chances to kill me without a problem and he didn’t take ‘em. He hasn’t laid a finger on Levy either. But ya can’t not notice how he mistrusts us.

“I have indeed noticed. It will surely not be easy to gain his trust.”

 

I made my way outside, the same way I came in and launched myself upwards. It was simple. Crouch down, channel magic at the feet, and then jump. Nothing difficult, but enough to launch me several meters into the air in one go, all the way to the first roof. Repeat process and I stood at the guilds very top.

I sat down, resting my head on my arm on the brick structure giving the guild a castle-y like appearance. It was almost cloudless and the light from the stars and the moon was enough to give Magnolia a very peaceful atmosphere. I looked over Magnolia on that night, not noticing how I slowly fell asleep in the same position.

 

I woke up the next day, lying on the small space the very top of the roof provided. It wasn’t even enough for me to fully stretch out, though granted I wasn’t the smallest person around. I was just a little taller than Gajeel actually.

The sun was shining down on me, making me appreciate that my hair was long and wild enough to have found its way to cover my face while sleeping, making it easier waking up in direct sunlight. Not something I was used to, considering I had to actively hike up above clouds to be in the sun.

The cathedrals bells rang and just after five powerful mages entered the city and made their way straight to Fairy Tail. All except one. A young woman I thought, headed off somewhere alone, separate from the group. All the rest went on straight into the building.

“That’s the team the old guy was talking about, right?” I mumbled to myself. “Two dragon slayers. Fire and Sky magic. No doubt about it.”

I got up and sneaked my way down the roof and straight into the window of Makarovs office. I caught him right as he was about to roll into the main hall, greeting the mages.

“You’re punctual.” He remarked.

I shrugged and followed him. I remained in the back for now watching. I could feel the magic power of each and every guild member. I could make out a few of their identities even. Gajeel and Levy of course. And the rest of the dragon slayers that were in Fairy Tail. Well, just one. Laxus

Makarov moved forward approaching a small platform from which he could look down at all his guild members. It was almost like a stage. It took him a while to get there considering he had to move from the top floor all the way down to the first floor. Everyone’s attention was on him and I decided it was safe to peek over the floors guard railing.

_Damn, that’s a lot of members._

“Fairy Tail! Today I asked for you to assemble for two occasions. I hope everyone is here to hear me out. But before that, lets all give our pride and joy a big welcome home!”

The entire crowd went wild before turning their attention to the four mages and shouting their names.

Natsu, the firecracker. Gray, currently getting undressed. Erza, the one wearing a butt ton of armor. Wendy, the youngest of them all, though by now having matured quite a bit further. And Lucy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 9: The Dragon Among Fairies


	9. The Dragon Among Fairies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double release! cuz I felt like it xD

_Lucy must be the one who went off alone._

And just as I said that, a blonde young woman came running into the guild. It took me not even a second to jump back. I recognized her. She was on Tenrou Island, but considering she was much younger and I wasn’t giving any of them much attention I didn’t notice back then. Now I did. I had to bite my own tongue to get my head back to thinking straight.

She looked so much like Anna.

“Sorry I’m late, everyone! There was something I had to take care of.”

“About Aquarius’ key?” Natsu asked.

“Mhm! I had to talk to Grandpa Crux for a second. I’m sorry I ditched you guys like that.”

They all continued talking while I was getting back to reality, shaking off thoughts and memories crossing my mind and took a deep breath. I was glad I knew how to hide my presence, or they would have noticed the second they entered Magnolia that something was off.

After the cheering died down a bit, Makarov decided to get back to his matters.

“Natsu’s team have accomplished great feats so far on their quest. We are proud of each one of you! Now I must ask something important. I would like every member who has joined after the year x791 to please pick a job and execute it or make their way home for today. I’m sorry for this rather unusual request, but there is something I must discuss with the core members of Fairy Tail first before revealing it to the rest of you.”

There was a shit ton of complaining. But with Makarov’s and Erza’s authority they got moving.

“Everyone who was a member before x791…” Gray started. “So, all the ones who were fighting against Tartaros and Alvarez. But why?”

“Gray-san? You… You are…” Wendy continued, blushing while keeping her eyes tightly shut.

“WHEN DID I GET NAKED?!” he yelled, right after being the centre of attention, immediately being socked in the face by Natsu.

“You seriously need to stop stripping in front of the kid, frost brain!”

“Natsu, stop it already!” the blonde tried pulling him away. While the other side had more support.

“Oohhh you wanna lecture me while running around half naked yourself, lousy heater?!”

“Go get him, my love!” It was a light blue haired woman dressed in a blue long dress. Way too warm for even late summer. That was Juvia.

And they were at it, trying to push one another away.

“WOULD YOU TWO IMBECILES STOP FIGHTING ALREADY!” the red-head shouted, grabbing both of them by their hair and smashing their heads together.

There was laughter.

“Please. Listen up. All of you.” Makarov continued. The entire left-over guild turned their heads to him. It was a good 30 people maybe. I didn’t count. “I have important news, and they may not be to everyone’s liking. As you may have noticed, Gajeel was absent for about a week on a more personal mission and returned bearing a lot of changes and adjustment to the guild.”

He paused.

“Gajeel. If you would, I would like you to have the word on him. I don’t want to say anything you don’t want to have revealed.”

I figured they were going to try and make this as digestible as possible for every one of them. But this was only making it worse. And I hated this dancing around the point. I walked up to the railing and looked down. No one really noticed me as they all payed attention to Gajeel, who was taking a breather, comforted by Levy, before making his way to Makarov.

“Eh. Well. I dunno how to make this somethin’ easy to take in. I really doubt there is a way to make this easy. Natsu, Laxus, Wendy. And I think Lucy, too even though ya aren’t a dragon slayer. Ya played a role in this one.”

They looked at one another. I wanted to just make this quick. It’s the easiest and least painful anyway. At all times. Bad news, just tell instead of dancing around the problem.

“What is this about, Gajeel-san?” coming from Wendy.

“Well, as it turns out, we – “

“You failed! Big time!” and here I was making my own entrance. I didn’t need an announcer.

The whole guild looked up at where I was standing, leaning over the railing, only a few recognized me. The dragon slayers of course, and Erza who saw me in human form too. The rest just looked confused while those four were frozen, freaking out internally.

I hopped over the railing, landing on the ground right next to Gajeel.

“Do you have to make such an overly dramatic entrance?!” Gajeel complained.

“Why not? You all were dancing around the problem like flies and I didn’t get to do this in years. Besides, this bunch always gives the best reaction when slapped in the face with a problem nice and intro-less.” I snickered. Earning an annoyed look from Gajeel.

“Urgh. Well you see yourself who managed to pull himself back from the dead…” He flicked his hand at me.

“Excuse me? I was never dead to begin with!”

“But you were pretty fuckin’ close to it!”

I hit the back of his head.

“Close. Not dead. There’s a difference, stud face.”

“You wanna call me that again, kitty-cat?”

_Kitty-cat?! Seriously?!_

I didn’t need to turn to notice everyone who had recognized me, through magic or appearance, to start backing away in fear.

“Did you just…?”

“What? Those marks kinda look like whiskers if ya ask me.”

“THEN AT LEAST THINK OF SOMETHING BETTER THAN A FUCKING CAT!”

The guild started to relax, seeing that I yelled at Gajeel, instead of trying to kill him like they were expecting. Only the actual cats… well… Exceeds were pissed off by ‘fucking cat’. They weren’t even actual cats, come on.

“What do you suggest then?”

“I dunno, I think a Lion fits much better!”

“It would fit whatever that shit is, that’s growing out of your scaly skull!” he returned ruffling through my hair. I shoved his hand away starting to mess with his.

“You got the exact same hair as me, screw-brain!”

The guild went from terrified to dumb struck.

“That’s not the same guy we fought back then, is it?” Laxus asked in disbelief. Both Wendy and Natsu standing at his side shaking their head in unison, baring the exact same facial expression. Blank stares.

They proceeded to just blankly stare at us as we continued messing with each other’s hair until we got pissed off to the point where we started pulling on it. Levy making her way to us at that point, leaving her twins despite their excitement to see me alone.

The usually sweet woman just grabbed onto both of our hair pulling us up. I noticed her struggling with the weight of holding us in place. Handling five-year-old twins was a much easier task than two full grown men getting into a fist fight over hair, though we probably didn’t act much different.

“Knock it off! Both of you!”

Gajeel looked at me scowling, turning to look at Levy giving her hand signals to let go of me. She looked at Gajeel eagerly swinging his hand around, then turned to me silently cursing, and let go, with full confidence.

I didn’t have enough time to catch the fall and my face hit the floor with a loud crash. And as did Gajeel right after starting to laugh at me.

“Honestly, I thought handling twins was difficult, but you two take that to a whole new level!”

“We’re not twins, I’ll have you know!” I responded as I got up.

“Close enough, I would argue. You two are more alike than Yaje and Shutora!”

“We’re not _that_ alike!” Ironically Gajeel had said the exact same thing at the same time. He noticed too. We looked at each other surprised for a second before giving each other deadly glares again.

A few of the guild people giggled while others were still way too confused to realize what was going on.

Until two little children broke it all.

“GRANDPAAAAAAAAAAA!” they yelled as they threw themselves at me knocking me over clean before I could even attempt dodging them.

“Grandpa?” a few guild members echoed.

“WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!” most of them screamed while my identity finished spreading through the guild causing more people to join in on screaming ‘what’.

I was just busy getting two five-year-old kids off me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10: Unexpected Redfox


	10. Unexpected Redfox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohhh boi

“Let go of me!” I growled at the two kids still not letting me get up. But when they started playing around with my hair and cape and were about to uncover my left side I managed to get a hold of them and simply pushed them down, holding them.

Both kids were going absolutely mad over the fact that I was giving them a hug, even if it was just so they would stop using me as a fucking playground.

“This makes me kind of glad I didn’t have to raise you.” I sighed at Gajeel.

Erza took a step forward raising her voice.

“Gajeel. Would you care to explain this?”

“Do I need to explain, when both my little ones just threw themselves at Acnologia, callin’ him grandpa…?” he chuckled embarrassed, pointing his thumb at me lying flat on the floor with children barely containing their will to play on me. I let my head drop back on the floor letting them continue poking the marks on my face.

_I look absolutely ridiculous, do I…?_

_Yes. Yes, you do. Good job. You have now officially lost to two children tackling you._

_Shut up! I wasn’t asking for a response!_

_Then you should stop asking stupid questions!_

_Why am I even bothering letting my mind talk to itself?_

_Well… For one –_

_Don’t. Even. Dare!_

Levy took the kids off me when she noticed how they were molesting me, receiving some heavy protest from both of them. She handed them over to Lily. I sat back up and almost immediately after had a sword pointed in my face. If anyone thinks I flinched or anything like that. I didn’t. I had worse.

“Nice and shiny. Well taken care of.” I said blankly moving the blade around with my hand.

I suppose Erza’s reaction was somewhat appropriate. I was taunting her after all. She lashed out trying to hit me.

“You have no business being alive!” She said sharply. Understandably.

I dodged her by rolling off to the side sitting back up again in one motion. “You’re that dragon lady’s daughter, aren’t you?” I remembered that I kind of played around with her mother’s corpse right in front of her. “Well, I guess you – “

She lashed her sword out again, this time I dodged too, but her sword managed to cut off a few strands of hair. I looked at them falling to the ground.

“Okay, now it’s personal, you wench!”

“This already is personal!” She hissed back.

“Gee, talk about a warm welcome.” I said dodging another incoming sword, landing back on my feet.

Gajeel wanted to interfere stopping Erza’s attack on me. I shoved him away, while almost dancing around Erza’s blades. Though I must admit she was good. She reequipped another sword, and the second she did that she barely missed me, and she actually started to back me into the corner of the guild.

Just as we reached there I found an opening. I was not going to use magic. It’s somewhat useless at defending against swords anyway. Instead while dodging I managed to find a way to kick up and rid her of one sword, catching it and blocking the incoming other sword.

“Wasn’t expecting that, huh?” I grinned from under the sword. “If you really want to fight me then I suggest we do that outside. I doubt you want to rebuild this guild hall again because of me. Because if you make me back off one more step, I will not simply dodge anymore.”

She pulled out a third sword and held it right under my chin. I was stuck almost. All I could do was move backwards to escape that sword. And that meant blasting everything into a pile of rubble.

“I don’t trust you one bit. And I do not approve of you being here, or alive for that matter.”

“Likewise.” She pressed the sword against me.

“I know that my swords work against you.”

“Are you trying to threaten me?” Now the sword drew a little blood. And I felt that. It’s not like I’m completely invulnerable. I was human for fuck sakes. At least at the moment.

“I could kill you right here.”

“You know, that’s kinda my line, woman.” I snickered. She was not happy.

I noticed the tension in her muscles telling me she was about to pull the sword to the side. I hit my chin down at the sword, knocking it away from where it was dangerous and jumped back. The scratches the sword left while being knocked down weren’t big ones. But still bleeding.

“Erza, I…” the blonde girl came up to her. “I think he isn’t going to attack any of us. If he wanted to, he would have already. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I think we are considerably safe right now.”

She earned a furious look from the red-head, and despite flinching a little she didn’t move backwards and continued to look at her with a smile. Erza took a deep breath and actually backed away.

“You have good intuition, Lucy. I won’t trust him, but I trust you.”

“Thank you, Erza.” She gave her quite the sweet smile.

_Phew. That actually could have gone bad._

I had several methods to get my butt out of this one but they all involved either transforming into a dragon or risk killing her by blowing her off with magic. I stood up straight again wiping off the blood that started running down my throat and looked at the blonde, getting a closer look at her.

“I’m right, am I? We have nothing to fear from you anymore. In fact, you’re just another Redfox now.” She spoke to me directly.

_Yea... My name does not go well with that last name!_

I stared at her. Blonde, busty. Large brown eyes. Celestial Keys, 9 gold ones. No doubt about it. She’s Anna’s decendant.

“You’re a Heartfilia.” I mumbled.

“I… am. You… know my family?”

_I was right. She is a fucking Heartfilia._

 “Know puts it simple.” I said bluntly. I didn’t merely know them. I almost married into that family, god dammit. Before Anna ‘ditched’ me. Fun fact, we never actually officially broke up.

_I may be able to use that against her in case we run into each other._

“What do you mean?” she asked carefully.

I huffed and walked past her, looking straight in her eyes. Probably a little too close as she jumped to the side.

_You can deal with the Heartfilia around even if the only differences are some personality traits, hair style and get up._

Honestly, she was dressing way too gimpy for my own comfort. Anna already dressed in a way that was pulling me in. But Lucy’s wardrobe was just outright dangerous. I mean. She was pretty much Anna.

Just half naked.

I had to get away from her before things would turn bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11: The Job


	11. The Job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to start writing again, or I'll be running out of chapters to post xD only have 3 left before I have no pre-written chapters.   
> Been focusing on inking the manga so it can come out tomorrow. If you're interested in reading the Manga (heavy focus on Acno's backstory) then head over to Twitter (@Wannabe_Mangaka aka Nekologia) or Tumblr (dragonslayersushi under the #kingrising). Chapter 2 should be done by tomorrow evening at latest!
> 
> -have a good read!

I definitely needed to take a breather after coming in direct contact with Lucy. Luckily, Makarov broke the commotion caused by Erza backing me into a corner and explained what was going on. About the truce, about the whole family situation with Gajeel and plans for what would happen now. It wasn’t all too complicated really. I would stay at Hakobe, occasionally dropping by.

It took three months of regularly checking in with Fairy Tail and Gajeel’s family for the guild to at least tolerate me (for the most part). They were still quite terrified of me, even the new members after they have been introduced to me. But I never touched any of them. Certainly, I was getting into fights, but I never went further than daunting them by releasing magic power and giving them threatening looks.

Somehow, I had gotten a closer relationship to Gajeel. Despite my protest he convinced me to get some new clothes. Actually, they weren’t so different from before except that the new cape now had wide long sleeves, left sleeve had a knot tied, and a hoodie (and I’m calling it a cape but honestly, it wasn’t all that long, more like a poncho) and the pants weren’t tattered. The biggest refusal from me he earned by trying to get me to wear a shirt. We compromised on a tank that I should wear whenever something family went down.

I eventually came to Magnolia more regularly and even stayed for a while before going back. It was all still somewhat icy, but he started trusting me enough to leave me alone with the children.

Yes, I started babysitting those two rats while Levy was borrowing my son for a date night.

I spent new years alone back at Zonia and went back about a week later and life went on as per usual. At least for the next two months.

It was actually not too unhappy with that situation considering everything that happened to me all those years back. My fury was mainly a result of that past. And realizing I had a son quelled a lot of that fury. I still, however, had a considerably hard time not getting pissed off at the smallest things which just like before resulted in people losing their life. Just not any guild members, or even Magnolia’s towns people. But I simply couldn’t avoid random strangers running into me and instead of ignoring me, poking fun at me or not leaving me alone. Not to start with the ones that seemed to notice and correlate the marks on my face to the ones on my dragon form, being able to tell who I was.

To cope with that Makarov eventually started discussing things with me whenever I showed up, but one day, after another two months, he took it one step further.

“Good timing on your visit. I have a request to make.” He started immediately after pulling me into his office. I answered with an interrogative look. “Lately, jobs have gone in about capturing certain people having escaped prison in this and other countries. Those jobs come directly from the Queen of Fiore, Hisui, and her staff. The council looked over them and decided that some of these job requests are no suited for normal guild work. They actually filed a good number of those as SSS-class jobs.”

“And… what does that have to do with me?”

“First of all, Fairy Tail has a very positive relationship with the Queen, seen as almost too good of a relationship considering our members’ habit of accidentally breaking things. That is the case ever since the Grand Magic Games in x791. Hisui has actually contacted me asking if our guild would be able to handle those.”

“Makarov.” I said with a rather annoyed voice. He looked up.

“The get-to-the-point thing?”

I nodded.

“Right. My apologies. I would like you to execute those jobs. I have a few reasons for making a decision like that.”

I looked at him, again by raising an ‘eyebrow’.

“You see. Those jobs actually involve capturing people with a very dangerous criminal record. It goes from violent thieves, traitors of the kingdom to even mass murderers. I would not be able to sleep at night if one of my children were to be put in such danger for some money.”

He put one of the request papers in front of me. I picked it up and read. At the very bottom seeing a reward of over a million Jewel for taking care of a traitor that has escaped to Bosco.

“It doesn’t say capturing. In fact, it simply reads to deal with the situation. You’ve noticed that, and still asked me.”

“I was hoping you would simply capture them for the legal system to decide on their punishment, but – “

“There is no but. I do what is requested of me.”

“Meaning you will take the requests?”

“A Million for some entertainment? Why not?”

_Especially when it’s open whether they should be killed or merely caught._

Makarov was questioning my intentions with the look he gave me. I shrugged.

“We would have to reveal your identity to the Queen. It would all be kept secret inside the high authorities inside the castle. I already discussed the matter when she asked me to come to Crocus a few days back. I told her I had someone in mind who isn’t a guild mage. We both agreed that, considering most of those outlaws already have their sentences, it would be beneficial to have someone execute those tasks who is not bound by guild laws.”

“As if I’m letting myself be bound by laws, let’s be honest.”

“Either way. In case you agree, I would like you to make contact with her directly.” He pulled something out of a drawer. A rectangular device which I recognized to be a lacrima with a few added features. “Warren, one of the mages in this guild developed this tool. It is essentially a communication lacrima in miniature format.” He took out another few crystals fixed on a chain. Four in total, light blue, grey, green and yellow. “You’ll need these too. They allow you to contact someone directly without going through the trouble of linking lacrimas. I added four crytals. The light blue one for Levy, grey for Gajeel, Yellow for me, in case anything happens and need to contact us urgently. Now, the green one links the device to Hisui. It’s rather neat, wouldn’t you say? And it’s fits easily into pretty much any pocket.”

I picked up the Lacrima thing after Makarov attached the chain to it. Giving it a closer look, I found the spots where the contact Lacrimas would have to be placed in. There were three spots possibly allowing for multiple simultaneous calls. Something that wasn’t possible back when communication lacrimas were first really used during the war 400 years ago.

I gave it an approving nod.

“Seems doable.” I said turning the Lacrima in my hand, holding it against the ceiling lamp.

Makarov nodded. I picked up the request sheet again giving it a second look, almost smiling.

_Taking care of a guy called Zash that has escaped Fiore prison and escaped to Bosco, huh? Crimes include treason, murder of over 50 people, invasion, stealing of a powerful magic item and property damage far exceeding a billion Jewel. Man, this guy is a dick._

Still far better than me. But at least I had the decency of looking decently good unlike this guy who had insanity just written all over his resting-bitch-face. On that sheet he was scowling even more than I do sometimes.

_Dangers: Possesses powerful black magic allowing control over people at eye contact._

“I’ll do it. That doesn’t sound like a difficult task to accomplish. And getting paid to kill? That sounds pretty good to me.”

Makarov buried his face in his hands. I mean, he did just ask me to accept jobs requesting murder, even if it officially wasn’t murder. It didn’t specify. So, I assumed that whether they were brought back dead or alive didn’t matter.

 “Just refrain from treating them as toys and do your job at least somewhat respectful to human dignity.”

“No promises.” I chuckled.

“I feel like that decision was a rash one…” he sighed as I got up and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 12: Souls


	12. Souls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 of King Rising is done! And I pre-wrote two more chapters for this story here. Productive days!

I left the Makarovs office after our talk and headed downstairs, not paying attention to the five-mage group that was sitting at a table, almost arguing.

I merely played around with the miniature lacrima Makarov gave me, almost dropping it in the process earning a small giggle from Levy who was at the bar talking to Mirajane. I sighed.

_They trust too easily. I haven’t exactly changed all that much. Merely less aggressive. At least towards the guild mages._

Levy walked up to me.

“Hey, Logia-kun!” she said, trying to be cute. I have no fucking idea what in the world made her start calling me Logia-kun and I protested a lot against it, but it only seemed to have made it worse. I frowned every time she called me that. She giggled this time too.

“Do you wanna test me?” I said sharply, scowling at her. She giggled again. Honestly, I don’t know what I did to this woman to deserve that ‘honorific’.

“Did you accept Makarovs request?”

“Did he tell you what it was about?”

“He… did tell Gajeel and me, but no one else in the guild.” She said, looking down at the ground.

I rolled my eyes. “Mhm.”

She sighed sounding almost a little disappointed.

“I guess there would be no one better suited for these kind of tasks…” she almost started crying and I was starting to get a little annoyed. I was still adjusting to dealing with anyone’s emotions.

“I’m not trying to talk myself out of this one. Besides. I get payed for it. So, you don’t have to cover my stuff anymore.”

“That is not exactly making it sound a lot better, but – “

“But it’s better than killing the innocent.” I interrupted, put my hand on her head and walked off towards the exit.

_Not that I ever really targeted anyone innocent, right?_

Yea, I guess remorse or anything like that wasn’t really a strong suit of mine. I even shrugged at the thought of almost having killed my son three times.

While walking out I had a few looks around the guild, one included the five-mage team discussing something at a table. Before it just seemed like arguing, but now paying attention, it wasn’t exactly that.

“Come on Lucy. We really should get going now.” Gray said.

“Yeah, frostbite is right! We got a job, Luce!”

“Guys. Please. We already talked about this! I’m still looking for Aquarius’ key and I got some information on her location.”

“Does it have to be immediately, Lucy-san? We can go check it out after we met with our client.” Wendy asked.

_Wendy…_

“No, Wendy. I… Aquarius’ key is most likely changing locations, so when I receive information like this I have to check it out. I fear Aquarius being found by another celestial spirit mage.”

“Gee, talk about selfish.” Came from Gray, lowly whispering, owning a nasty look from Natsu.

“If anyone takes it, I promise you we’ll get her back for you. But there is something we have to do Luce.” from Natsu.

“Please, just go without me. I’ll reassemble with you once I checked it out, I promise!”

“Lucy! We are a team! We cannot… go… without…” Erza said as she noticed me walking up to them.

I stood right next to Lucy and all five of them were staring at me. Only Wendy took a step back after her first fright. And she actually decided to bow, greeting me.

“You lost Aquarius?” I asked Lucy reproachfully. She nodded. “Nicely done, Heartfilia.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I had to break it to summon the Celestial Spirit King to save my friends!” she backtalked, flinching immediately after she noticed that she was protesting.

I had authority over everyone in the guild. And I noticed something. I turned to Natsu.

“King, huh.” I frowned at Natsu. Him glaring back. “We haven’t yet settled who gets the title.”

“Since when do you ask for permission to call yourself King?” he said sarcastically.

“I wasn’t asking for permission. More like declaring it.”

“That sounds more like your arrogant, sorry ass”

“Watch it!” I grabbed him by his scarf throwing him down on the table, holding him down at his neck. I grew less aggressive, but Natsu was the one exception. I knew exactly why. His foster father ripped off an arm of mine, and Natsu tried to rip me apart. Needless to say, I was not happy that he dared be disrespectful.

He tried to get out of my grip, but I ignored him.

“So, Luce. Details on Aquarius’ location. All of them.”

She was confused at first but eventually shook herself and told me. That Aquarius’ new key reincarnated somewhere in Fiore. And the sightings weren’t summonings of the spirit, but apparently some guy boasting about having found some rare artefact. But that guy was on the move and surprisingly powerful. I didn’t recognize that guy’s name.

“So, what your saying is, is that this Serena guy somehow managed to find that Key and is now showing it off to everyone. First of all, who the fuck is Serena?”

“I knew you didn’t bother with the names of people you tried to kill. Actually, he was dead. But after you explained what happened with you it made sense. He was affected from the same exact thing. He’s the last person you managed to kill. An eight-lacrima dragon slayer.”

_That guy too? Dammit. Why? Wait, I know why!_

I let go of Natsu, he jumped back.

“Because of their souls…” I mumbled.

“Their souls? What do you mean?” Wendy asked.

_Little Wendy…_

“Well… I believe Anna explained it to you.”

They raised their eyebrows.

_Fuck! Now they wonder why I know her name._

“Just don’t question why I know her. It should be obvious considering she was hunting me. Anyway. You fought my soul. If my soul was affected by it, so would others. And the last soul I reaped was that guy. I haven’t bothered checking but considering he just made a grand u-turn back to life, his soul likely taken back from me.”

I checked right as I said that. And I was right. His soul was gone. I don’t remember all the souls anymore considering how many there are, but that soul was gone. Among another actually.

_Just two, huh? Looks like I had enough magic power left over to keep every soul with me except those two who were brought back the same way I was. Who is the other one though?_

I shook my head.

“Whatever. Heartfilia, go on your mission.”

“But, what about Aquarius?”

“Just go!”

She looked at me and squinted her eyes.

“You… You’re planning something.” She said, with curiosity. “I can see it. You’re planning something!” she said, a little louder, now getting up from her chair standing in front of me. Directly in front of me actually, smiling.

“Lucy, what are you doing?” Natsu asked. “Or rather. What are you up to, Acno?”

I preferred that nickname much better than Levy’s Logia-kun, however I ended up with that nickname…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 13: Bonds


	13. Bonds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> possibly the longest chapter so far. im sorry? xD  
> also this is where the tag "the author regrets nothing" starts coming into play!  
> you'll see. prepare. oh god....... why....

“I’m doing… something. Yea… Eh… Let’s… uhm… call it something.” I shook my head. “Just go on your job and leave whatever you got left of Aquarius’ key with Gajeel and Levy.”

_This woman needs to back the fuck off. She looks too much like Anna. WAY. TOO. MUCH!_

I backed away from her. As if me barely getting a straight sentence out and trying to not look into her eyes was not odd enough. I had to get out of there. It’s stupid how dragon slayers seemingly find someone, and then can’t let go. It happened to every dragon slayer I knew. Myself included.

Anna was… simply brilliant. Perfect almost.

Lucy agreed to giving the key and the second I heard that I was out of there.

“I think I’m confused…”

“So am I, Wendy. But I think he may not be as terrible of a person as before he ended up hiding among us. I mean, I get the feeling he’s going to help me find her.”

“I wouldn’t put my faith into all of this, If I were you. He did too much to all of us.”

“Yea, you’re right Erza. I’m sorry. I guess I just got excited at the idea.”

“Job time then?”

“Yea, I’m sorry guys. I’m coming. I’ll just give Levy the broken key. On the off chance that he does have a plan.”

 I was heading outside, when I heard someone running after me.

“What do you want Gajeel?”

I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

“Yo. You got somethin’ planned for that key, don’t’cha?”

I nodded.

“Well. I saw how you acted.” I stopped walking and turned at him. “Whatever you do, and whatever is goin’ on inside that brain of yours, don’t fall for her, Acno. She’s not for you. And I doubt you’d ever have a chance.”

_I’m reacting this way because of how much she looks like Anna! There’s not much I can do._

“Don’t have to tell me that.” I took a deeper breath, pulling the hood over my head. “She’s not her after all…” I whispered to myself.

“Who is ‘her’?”

Obviously, he heard. He’s a dragon slayer. What was I expecting?

I stopped walking again and let out an annoyed breather.

“Another time.”

“Ya always say that. Another time, not now, later maybe. It’s always the same!” He was getting angry at me. “I want answers. And I’d much prefer to get them _now_!”

I looked at him. Cold, as always.

“You’re my father, right? Now, I want to know who my mother is! Is she ‘her’? and if not, who is ‘her’? What happened 400 years ago?”

“It’s x795, right?”

“yea, why?”

“Then I’ve been alive for…” It took a second to calculate. “446 years.”

Four and a half centuries were a crap ton of time. And considering dragons had a stupidly long lifespan, I’m barely half way through. Dragons typically lived for a good 800 to 900 years. I’m not sure if that applies to dragon slayers that became dragons, too. It should.

Gajeel ended up convincing me to come to his house and we sat down on the couch, well, Gajeel was on the couch. I sat on the floor playing around with some Metal scraps Gajeel left there as snacks.

“So, you were born 446 years ago, that means in x349, correct?” He asked. I nodded. “Do you remember the date?”

“Is it important?”

“Come on, just tell me.” He demanded, taking a sip of his drink.

“Urg... fine…” I took a short pause to take a breath for the storm coming my way. “July seven.” I sighed staring at the wall.

I cannot describe how quickly Gajeel spat out his drink and started coughing.

_Yeah, that’s about what I expected as a reaction._

“Why always the number seven?!” he coughed.

“The heck should I know? Coincidentally, the night I was born was during a lunar eclipse. And you arrived in this time during a lunar eclipse too.” I laughed. “Anyway. Many things happened. And first to answer your questions. ‘Her’ is not your mother. Actually, if I didn’t miss anything you’re the result of a semi-random drunk hook up during the first couple of months as a dragon slayer.”

“Gee, thanks.”

I laughed.

“I think it was that girl anyway. She had black hair and red-ish eyes, so I doubt it was anyone else.”

“How many ladies did you fuck to be this uncertain?!” he yelled.

“Uhhhhh… a few? Five? No, six. Probably”

“You sure were busy.” He chuckled. I shrugged. “Well, at least I’m the only accident.”

“Not quite, actually. I’m pretty sure you got a half-sister. Though I’m not 100% certain about it like I was with you. She just has ‘her’ scent on her. It’s extremely faint, however. I doubt your senses are strong enough to notice it. And in addition to that, she looks a little like her, but different enough to not be obvious.”

While I was talking I tried to ignore Gajeels look on his face.

“So, she’s still alive?” he asked carefully.

“Her mother is too, in fact. Though I have yet to run into her.”

Gajeel immediately slammed me into the wall with his metal pole arm, cracking a few bricks. He released his punch and I dropped on the ground.

“YOU AND ANNA ARE WENDY’S PARENTS?!!” he shouted.

“I think so.” I said quietly, trying to hold in my lunch. “Funnily enough, it most likely happened when we were both drunk too.”

He continued to stare at me in disbelief.

“Someone needs to castrate you.” Gajeel said bluntly.

“HELL NO! I WANNA KEEP IT!” I winced.

Gajeel started laughing.

“You sound like a little child wantin’ to continue playin’ with his toys!” He laughed.

“I meeeeeeeaaaaaann… Kind of. But I’d rather share those.”

“Now you’re just lewd.” He said, right after choking again on his laughter.

“Hey! Mid-twenties are a shitty time to be stuck in, regarding that matter, you know?”

“Well, whatever floats your boat, Dad.”

_Dad?!_

I made a face. And he did too when he noticed he just called me ‘Dad’. He gritted his teeth and looked away from me.

I smirked.

“Aaaaaaww.” I teased him.

“Yea as if, you shithead of a dragon.”

“Tsundere…”

“I’m NOT a tsundere!” he yelled as he got up turning around to look at me. “I just – “

I hugged him. If you can call putting an arm around him and my hand on the back of his head really a hug. I didn’t really know why. But being called ‘Dad’ was a damn good feeling.

Gajeel tensed though, but after a second or two, he sighed and hugged back surprisingly tightly.

“If Levy can forgive you for what you did to us, I guess so can I.” he said, hesitating only a little.

“Thank you, Gajeel.” I said quietly whispering, more to myself than to him.

“It’s not like my family isn’t weird enough already.” He chuckled.

We hugged for a solid half a minute when we both heard someone knocking at the window, peeking through it having spotted that father-son-moment.

It was Levy waving and having the widest, pleased grin on her face imaginable. Gajeel and I looked at her, and back at each other immediately hitting each other and starting to get into a fight.

“See? You’re a tsundere, stud face!”

“You’re one to talk! Ya hit me at the same time!”

“I think you two just can’t admit that you grew quite close to one another.” Levy giggled as she closed the house door behind her and coming up to us. Lily, in his small form currently setting down the two kids who came running over to us too.

“Rather metal head just can’t admit to his feelings!” I said, shoving Gajeel away from me.

“Like big bad-ass dragon can’t admit that he actually has a heart!” he protested.

Levy laughed as we continued giving each other deadly glares even as both kids started throwing themselves at us.

“Looking at you two I don’t think we had to make that test to have proof of you two being related.” She continued laughing. “You are insanely alike.”

“We are NOT!” we shouted simultaneously. Again.

“We aren’t exactly provin’ our point, are we?” Gajeel said, turning to me.

“Nope. Not really.” I sighed back.

“Both of you,” she lowered herself to be on eye level with us sitting on the ground before she continued. “Tsun-de-re.” she giggled, right after running away from Gajeel, who didn’t take long to catch her and start tickling her like a mad man.

“Grandpa?” Shutora called sweetly, Yaje now climbing on me as well. “What’s a ‘tsundere’?”

“Everything your father is.” I said back, trying to sound just as innocent while loud enough for Gajeel to hear me easily.

“Stop making up facts, ‘ _Logia-kun!’_ “ Gajeel shouted, teasing.

I made a face again, much to the twins’, Gajeel’s and most of all Levy’s amusement.

“I am NOT adorable!” I said sharply, pointing my finger at Gajeel, in retrospect probably sounding a little childish.

All four, even Lily in the back broke out in laughter. I rolled my eyes.

Damn, how I hated that nickname, but considering my reactions I don’t blame them for using it to tease me.

“How about I’ll make us some dinner, hm?” Levy said sweetly after calming down a little and headed into the kitchen. “I assume you’ll stay?” she asked me.

“Eh, why not. But I’ll have to take care of a little something first.”

“Alright. Dinner won’t be ready for another hour anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 14: Dragon King and Human Queen


	14. Dragon King and Human Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im not that talkative so i dunno what to say, but this box to fill out always makes me feel obligated to write something to you so imma be super cheesy and...
> 
> thanks for reading!!

I asked if the room in the basement was free and if she could make it sound proof. They knew what I was going to take care of so Levy simply cast a solid script, soundproof, after I went in.

It was a rather small, lengthy room. During the few months I was with Fairy Tail already they cleaned out the mess and put some furniture in it. Now it looked like any normal room would, white walls, a carpet on the floor, a bed, closet where I kept my old clothes after I refused to throw them out (especially the cape I still wore occasionally) and a desk that was starting to get a bit cramped with results of boredom as I call them. Levy likes them but to me it’s nothing more than fooling around with some paper. Though, I guess a few decent things did come out at the end.

The room was nothing too fancy, I didn’t need more anyway when I stayed around.

I hopped on the bed and put the lacrima down, connecting the small green one and sparked it with some magic to activate it. It started off with a bit of white noise until someone picked up after a few seconds.

“Pleasure to meet you, my name is Hisui as you may already know.”

I looked at her.

“You’re young for being the human queen.”

“You look young for being almost four and half centuries old, Dragon King.” she retorted.

Good. She was decent with informality. No wonder. She knows Fairy Tail.

“Just so we’re clear. I’m not going to be formal with any of this.” I said flatly.

“I didn’t expect formality after Master Makarov filled me in with who exactly he asked to do the jobs. I was surprised to see you were alive but honestly glad you decided to stay at least mostly peaceful with us.”

“Whatever…”

She giggled.

“It takes a bit of time to get used to those roughies, doesn’t it? But they’ll grow on you. Trust me on that. I hope we can remain in a contract of truce too. I would not like to plunge this kingdom into war if there is a reasonable way to avoid it.”

I simply nodded.

“About the requests…” she continued.

“You do realize it doesn’t specify what I should do with the targets, right?” I said just as she was about to speak.

“Yes, I am aware of that. You should know that it is the council that calls out charges against criminals, not me. But they have told me that to maintain a form of legality to the requests they cannot under any circumstance request murder. As such those criminals who would have faced death penalty by the council (even though I’m against those, even as queen I have little say in the matter) will have request forms leaving open what should be done with them.” She explained.

“So, what you’re saying is that for those ones I’m free to just take them out the second I spot them, right?”

“Yes, that is what it implies.”

I looked at the form Makarov gave me earlier that day, double checking the form. It didn’t specify. I leaned against the wall.

“Out of curiosity, what exactly did this guy do?” I asked.

“It’s a bit of a longer story and I would not like to get into too much detail about it. But he was sentenced to jail after it came out he was practicing a form of Black Magic which is strictly forbidden in this country. He continued fleeing into another country where he somehow managed to become a high ranked official. In an act of treason, he, and the now-queen of the kingdom of Stella, back then under someone else’s control, broke into one of Fiore’s secret areas and stole a Magic Item. Said item he later used to get revenge on Fiore and try to set himself at the top of the Kingdom of Stella, harming the Queen and her citizens in the process too. He has been captured by some Fairy Tail wizards we asked to infiltrate Stella and bring back the magic artefact but has recently escaped prison and fled to Bosco.”

“That is a long story. Well, two things. One: I doubt he would stay in Bosco for long. He knows Fiore is going to come after him.”

“You are correct. I doubt that as well, is that going to be a problem?”

“Not at all. I know what he looks like, so the second I pick up his trace I can hunt him down easily. Anyway. The second thing, another curiosity one. What’s that magic artefact since you cared more about that thing than you bring back that Zash guy.”

“Well, about that. The traces of it’s creation actually lead our investigation back to you. It is something my family had found when investigating the Dragon Graveyard.”

Well, that certainly caught my attention.

“My grand-father, who found it, dubbed it the Dragon Cry because of its shape and history. It seems that back during the Dragon King Festival something absorbed the Dragon’s grief and anger, as he called it, which ended up deforming a red ribbon into a staff looking reminiscent of a serpentine dragon.”

_A red ribbon?! Sonya’s? She died in the same place as that thing was found. She had a red ribbon… In fact, could it be the one I picked up and destroyed some years ago?_

“Despite its destructive power it was rather pretty to look at.”

“A red ribbon…” I mumbled.

“Indeed.” She nodded. “I even threw Queen Sonya off guard.”

That was it. I lost my cool right then and there. There were too many things that are too big to be coincidences, but also not making sense. Hisui was caught by surprise.

“Do you know Sonya?”

It took me a second to collect my thoughts. The only way Sonya could have survived was if one of the dragons managed to enchant themselves into her body and halted her aging…

“Say. Was she controlled by a dragon that laid dormant inside of her?” I asked from under my hair.

“Y-yes, in fact that was it.”

“Fucking dragon.” I said sharply, but silently through my clenched jaw. I was just shy of completely losing my cool. Sonya was alive because some dragon thought it’d be a good idea to make her his vessel. Sounds about right.

“Well… What a coincidence that you know her. Anyway. Back to the job form since we went on a little tangent there, I – “

“I can already tell you that I am not going to bring that guy back alive! I will also not make promises in which condition he’ll end up in. This matter just got personal.” I gritted my teeth as I got up, picking up the lacrima from the bed sheets.

Hisui sighed.

“Try not to bring him back in pieces…”

“If there are even pieces left of him.”

_Since she’s still alive, my promise goes on. I promised I’d protect her. And I will. That includes hunting down everyone that dared to harm her!_

Hisui sighed again, knowing that she couldn’t stop me after getting this pissed.

“I’ll be bringing him to the Dragon Graveyard. I’ll let you know once I’m done. I want the money when I drop him off, got it?”

Before she could answer properly I snapped off the green mini lacrima and sat back down on the bed crumbling the request sheet, clenching my fist around it.

I was still pissed. I needed to calm down somehow and I proceeded to kick in one of the closet doors, completely obliterating it. 

Some splinters went off flying, of which a couple ended up scraping me. One of them was on my face putting a small scratch on my cheek.

I picked out the wooden splinter that got stuck in it and a small amount of blood came out, which I just wiped off.

I needed that, something to lash out on to not eat it all up which would only lead to it all exploding. Yes, even if it meant getting hurt myself, it was calming somehow.

I took a deep breath while looking at the floor and let go of the crumbled-up paper.

After that breather I went out of the room, back upstairs, but ignored Gajeel and Levy’s questions about the scratches and simply dropped onto the couch looking at the ceiling. The only thing I didn’t ignore was that Levy handed me the broken Zodiac Key which Lucy had dropped off a while ago. I didn’t say anything and just took it out of Levy’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 15: Nightfall Bosco


	15. Nightfall Bosco

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brace yourselves!  
> ohhhhh boy

“Aquarius…” I mumbled, looking at the key against the ceiling light.

_Anna…_

I shook my head. There was more important to take care off than worry about her. I didn’t even want to worry about her. Honestly, there was nothing I wanted to do with that woman. She destroyed enough of me already and I am not going to forgive her for using my children against me, whatever reason she had. I put the key into my pocket.

And joined for Dinner. Or rather I should say I was poking around in the food on the plate with my knife. I ate a little bit but not really much at all.

“Is it that bad, that you want to _murder_ my food?” Levy giggled, tilting her head to the side.

I growled at her, earning a little more giggling from Levy.

“Honestly, tho. Why are ya eatin’ so little? I haven’t once seen ya finish a plate.” Gajeel asked. Accent involved, but still serious.

“Would you have a big appetite when your food tastes like absolutely nothing?” I gave back, agitatedly.

Levy looked worried at me. I sighed.

“I dunno what yer problem is,” Gajeel said, “but I think it tastes pretty fucking good!”

“Honey! Language!” Levy hissed quietly jolting her head at the children eating their food under Lily’s supervision.

“What? If he thinks yer cookin’ is that bad, then he’s gotta have issues.” Gajeel retorded, shrugging his shoulders.

I smashed down the knife into the wooden table. Gajeel and Levy, as well as the kids and Lily quickly looked at me as it got dead silent. I looked down, gritting my teeth as I still held on tight to the handle of the knife.

“There are certain things that come with being a dragon.” I said sharply, looking up at Gajeel, who flinched a little bit. I was holding a knife and was pissed. I didn’t blame him. “I didn’t _choose_ to be like this!!” I yelled and left, leaving the knife stuck in the table.

“Jeez…” Gajeel said, having his arms crossed behind his head.

“I guess there’s nothing we can do. Nothing he can do either.” Levy sighed.

“He could be a little less aggressive. If ya ask me…”

“Did you expect that re-socializing him would be a quick ordeal?” Levy said, lowering her head. “We were tasked with quite something here.” She patted the kids head, shaking her head at their question on what she meant.

“Shouldn’t that go through the stomach? It sure works for me!”

“Hm… It won’t work if he can’t taste anything. He liked nothing so far even when he said it smelled good. This may be something out of his, and our control…”

Gajeel answered growling.

 

A few minutes later I went back upstairs, now wearing my old tattered cape, a few spots fixed by Levy. I heard Gajeel and Levy calling me.

“I’m out of here.” I said blankly, grabbing my keys to the house from the bowl at the front door.

“The job?” Gajeel asked.

I nodded as I opened the door and left, slamming it shut behind me. Luckily it was already dark outside. It was only late March after all, so the night came early in the evening. It was about time.

I walked out the gates of Magnolia and straight off the road into the forest.

_This guy was last seen in a port town in Bosco… Zash, right?_

When away from the road enough I quickly transformed into a dragon and flew off. Eastwards to Bosco. The border wasn’t far away and after not even half an hour I was there. Matching the border on the map the mountains immediately started becoming sharper and rougher. Bosco was known for it. A country depending on the sea because of its dry and desert like climate and landscape.

I landed on one of the mountains after another half an hour of flight. Already being at the shore. I looked down on a small town that was supposedly where this guy was last seen about four weeks ago.

_Four weeks… I doubt my sense of smell is strong enough for tracking a person… Besides I don’t even have something to recognize him with._

So, I decided to look for his magic power instead. It was harder to pull off than tracking someone by smell, but it was possible. His power was to control people using a special type of magic that required blood. And that I knew what it smelled like.

I shifted back and pulled off the Sash from my pants. I didn’t need it there anyway, but I always had it with me for as long as I can remember. I somehow managed to tie it around my forehead and pulled it into position so the only thing not covered by it were my eyes.

I strolled down into the town and sneaked around looking for the scent of blood. Human one more specifically. The town reeked of fish blood the closer I got to the port and strangely something else that quite annoyed me. I had to venture everywhere if I wanted to find the scent and not having that sense be confused with the heavy stench of month old dried fish blood. Which meant I eventually ended up in… let’s call it the red area. I didn’t want to spend much time there and walked quickly, trying to block out the scent of people trying to quell their stupid needs.

I at least hoped to be out soon, but things never go as planned. Of course, there were some out on the streets. How would they not? It’s prime time for them. I managed to ignore most of them until one lady…

“Hey, hun. You look like you’re searching for something?” She said, placing her hand on me. Any hope of her not trying to pick me up went out the window when I had to grab her wrist before it decided to venture down south.

“I’ll kill you if you don’t cease this right now!” I hissed at her.

She tried to hide it (it was her job after all.) but I noticed her wincing.

“Then what are you looking for, handsome?” another one walked up. It took one look at her to know that she was the girl for the hardcore shit. Couple of scars, bruises and torn lingerie. I let go of the other girl’s wrist.

“None of your business!” I growled.

A futile task. She pushed me into the wall and placed her hand under my cape and trailed up.

“Talk to me. I can tell you’re looking for something. Or someone. Let me know and I may just be able to help if you haven’t already found it in me” She said, trying to turn me on.

She was extremely close to me now, almost having her entire body pushed up against me. I squinted my eyes at her.

_She smells like blood. Not just her own. So maybe?_

“I’m looking for a man called Zash. Got anything? Or are you just wasting my time?”

She smiled and twisted herself a little looking at the scars on her left side before looking back at me and leaning into me.

“In fact, I do. He paid extra for letting him keep my blood.” She said a little breathy. Still apparently trying to get me which was not going to work. Only a little at most.

“Talk!”

She giggled as her right hand reached my jaw. She went under the cloth with her fingers while her other hand decided to travel down. Her right hand pulling on the cloth until she saw the marks.

She smiled at me and by the way her eyes looked at me she knew who I was.

“I shall give you information, if you give me what I want.” she whispered snaking herself around me.

_This lady’s got guts!_

I stared at her for a lack of response. Slim face, long reddish hair and cold blue eyes. I grabbed her neck as her hand made it to where she intended it to go.

Mid-late-twenties are shit time to be stuck in when it came to things like this! She grinned at me.

“Information first!” I said sharply as I started to tighten the grip choking her a little.

“It’d be such a waste to let someone as handsome as you slip away, now wouldn’t it?” she pressed her words out. “How about we agree on simultaneously giving each other what we want, hm?”

I glared at her as she started playing around.

 _Focus, you idiot!_ The dragon side roared at the barely even (physically) 28 years old human side.

“And since you seem to be wanting the same thing as me, I guess I’ll have to make a different request. Hurt me, but don’t kill me.” She said silently directly into my ear. “I shall keep your little secret or who you are and will tell you where Lord Zash went.” She backed off a little. “Now doesn’t that sound fabulous? If not, then I guess you’re not getting that info.”

I growled as I loosened the grip, instead holding her chin, pulling it towards me.

 

I climbed up a mountain at dawn, out of the city. The girl said Zash went eastwards and gave me something with his scent on it since tracking magic failed as it seems to only work when driven by fresh blood. I tried to track it when I was pinned down by the girl but couldn’t find it. I knew I could believe her. My magic allows me to know when someone is lying to me without fail.

And honestly? I was getting a million Jewel for this. I decided to make the best out of it and she did not disappoint.

I ended up killing her anyway since I didn’t promise her anything after all, and there is no way for me to tell whether people keep promises, so I was not about to trust some random ass lady. Besides. I had a job to do. With minimal attention drawn to me. It had to be done in the cloak of complete darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 16 - Hunt


	16. Hunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im sorry for the mild smut on the last chapter xD I couldnt resist putting it in there.

After days, it was already late April, of trailing Zash’s scent I finally managed to catch up quite a bit. I had the entirety of Bosco to walk through after all. And I couldn't fly or I'd lose his trail. I was coming into the range of where I could feel I was getting close to something reminiscent of black magic. What still bothered me was the fact that he could control someone, probably via Soul Watch. It’s a technique residing in someone’s eyes that allows someone to see a soul. Sonya possessed it too, but she never dared to mess with them. I taught it to her in the form of Life Magic since the kind child she was she didn't want magic allowing her such abilities. She knew it was better not to mess with a Soul that wasn’t your own. Not after what it was doing to me.

I shook of the thought on how in the world Zash learned how to do it (I couldnt even control someone's soul!) especially since it needed blood.

I followed his trail up another mountain. This time it was quite a way up, but I didn’t want to lose his trace, so I decided to walk, instead of flying up, regretting it when I arrived at the peak worn out and surprisingly with quite an appetite from walking uphill all day.

The sun had already set but it was still bright. It is one of the only things in this world I genuinely love, a sunset. Probably because I’m quite a night owl, but mostly because it reminds me of Anna every time. How the gold fades to red, to dark blue, to black.

 _Our colors._ I thought as I sat down watching the sky getting darker. There was a reason we were called the _Sunset_ _Couple_ back then. A name more poetic than need be in my opinion. I laid down watching the stars appear one after another and before I knew it I woke up in bright sunlight.

I had to wait another day anyway. From what I could tell Zash was in a town currently, larger than the one I went to before, so I needed to lay low until I get an opportunity to catch him. Another half a day hike secured my ability to track him down with magic power alone, meaning I could fly the rest of the way.

_But first, I need food!_

I still didn’t eat. It’s now been two full days, despite hiking and despite having lost the appetite from the night before I noticed that my endurance and strength had dropped compared to the previous day.

Problem was that the date had just jumped to May, x798. Way too early for anything edible to be ripe. Except lemons. Except lemons…

I ended up spending a few hours looking for anything edible and it took ages to track down, but I did eventually manage to get my hands on a wild hog. Hunting like that was a pain. The smallest noise and their gone. And considering how close I was to a town I couldn’t hunt in dragon form as I usually did.

Either way, as the next night came about I ate, had scraps left over that I roasted so it wouldn’t go bad, tracked away from the town and decided this was the night that Zash was going down.

As I flew I noticed how the landscape changed again. The pointy mountains became scarce from where I started but it was still Bosco. I looked through the cloud free areas and noticed how crystal-like, glimmering stones started appearing. And no towns. It was rocky terrain and a lot of water, so I decided to land somewhere and get another proper reading on Zash’s magic power. He wasn’t far away, and the night had barely just begun. With my sense of time, I would have said it was closing in on midnight. I transformed back to human form and gave one of those crytals a tap, and they responded with a small spark.

_Stellanium… So, you fled to Stella? How stupid can you be? Unless… this is planned…_

I sat down in front of it. He had fled to the country he tried to take over years back. Stella is the only place with crystals like these. I checked. Curiosity. Boredom. I had my reasons.

 _You planned this it seems…_ I continued the train of thought, snacking on the leftover food. _Stella is barely as big as Fiore with only a fraction of citizens, most being close to the capital, Altair… So, this would be rather easy to take over. Is that your plan now?_

“But why? Why would you attempt at taking over without even having the trust of the citizens, nor the Dragon Cry?” I laid down. “Unless this isn’t about taking over, but revenge…”

I paused.

“Sonya…”

I jolted back up and slammed my hand down on the floor. I could sense the magic power of everyone in quite a radius getting a reading on their location, and with a rough concept of this Kingdoms layout it didn’t take long to find out where exactly Zash was.

_About three quarters the way from here to Altair… and direction… is Altair…_

That confirmed it. I jumped up, scarfed down the rest of the meat and sprinted. After a minute coming across a cliff edge of Stella’s largest lake and transformed mid-air and flew right over the water. Altair was a rather small city compared to Fiore’s capital and was on a larger island in the lake’s centre. No wonder not many people lived there, considering Stella is mainly one giant lake.

I was heading closer to Altair, while reading Zash’s magic power to be quite close to the capital. And as far as I could read already on shore. This was going to be a close call if I wanted to make it there before anyone recognizing I was there. That it was early night was now not a good thing anymore because people tend to be out until past midnight usually. Anywhere I went really. And considering it was the capital I wouldn’t have been surprised if Stella’s army was still patrolling. All that meant I couldn’t face Zash in dragon form or else people would most likely recognize me.

About 2 miles off shore I took the dive into the water and continued below which was no problem at all. Large, smooth scales didn’t exactly have much friction, so I kept the speed.

No wonder. Technically, I was a water dragon. I didn’t look like one obviously (except for the swirly pattern), but I was. Again. Technically. Water was the element I chose when I became a dragon slayer. The choice was simple considering I already had a magic power that allowed me to use water. It wasn’t exactly water magic, but that’s a detail.

I transformed back and used said water magic to launch myself to shore since I couldn’t quite swim with that missing arm, besides, it was faster anyway. I shook the water out of my hair and cape and got another read on Zash.

_Shit… Alright, me. Time for a run._

More a launching myself (with something similar to force fields) than a run to be fair, it was faster. And it didn’t take long until I could get a clear view on him.

And he on me. He noticed me, which wasn’t all that surprising considering he was probably strong enough to easily sense magic power. I landed on the ground blocking Zash’s way and stood up.

I glared him down. All the fury I had when I found out he had harmed Sonya came up right that moment. I hated his presence. He glared back, from the looks of it not recognizing me, which was good.

“Why?” I asked.

“Huh?” he responded.

“Spare me the arrogance in your tone. Tell me what you’re doing here.”

“And I should tell you why…?”

I walked up to him, inwardly happy that he took a step back, because of me releasing some magic power. He was taller than me. I actually had to look up.

“You stole the dragon cry, harmed Sonya, and now you’re back where you fucked it all up. Why?”

“I don’t have to answer you, small-fry.” He snickered, patting me on my head and walked past me, deliberately bumping into me to knock me away. It worked. He was not only taller than me, heavier, but presumably just about as strong. Needless to say, I was furious.

I turned around slowly. And for the first time in years I got a rush from fury. From the magic power building up craving to be released. And before I knew it started pulsing, making Zash turn around again, still with that arrogant look on him.

“Answer. Me!” I hissed, only earning amused laughter.

“Make me.” He laughed.

I moved my hand back and hit it forward, sending a massive wave of magic towards him. To my own surprise he managed to block it only being pushed back a little.

“Gee, you’re not bad for a kid.” He huffed.

_A kid…?! Ok, yea. I look young, but a kid?!_

“Pff. I’m much older than you, mind you!” I growled as I jumped forward and punched, targeting his face.

The magic from my hand disappeared as he blocked and sent a punch backwards. I dodged, but I could feel the breeze of air go through my hair that his fist left. And another punch followed which I was able to block.

The fight was surprisingly even, but more so because of a giant, irritating handicap.

“Oh, only one arm, eh?” he laughed.

I jumped up sending a roll kick his way, hitting him square in the face with one of them. He held the spot I hit and rubbed it to ease the pain. Now he was taking me somewhat more seriously. I still wanted my answers.

We stood about a meter away when he started using magic. He looked me right in the eyes as he tried using his magic. I looked back straight at them and grinned. He quickly closed his as he stumbled backwards covering them with his hand in pain.

“What… What are you?!” he yelled.

I chuckled as I walked towards him.

“Answers for answers?” I grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 17 - In The Name Of Me, For You, Dear Sonya


	17. In The Name Of Me, For You, Dear Sonya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double upload! This is chapter 17. Dont miss Chapter 16 - Hunt.  
> Anyway, enjoy!

“Where’s your soul?!” he yelped. “You’re alive! So, where the fuck is it?!”

“You can’t control me.”

I took advantage of his state and smashed him down to the ground, pressing him down with one foot. I was about to grab his wrists and immobilize him when I heard a larger group of people running towards this place. Our short fight must have been noisy enough to alarm some soldiers. 15 of them it seems.

_Oh great… He-_

“If I can’t control you, then I guess I must resort to using others.” He said whilst regaining his arrogant self-confidence.

Just seconds later I was dodging swords from the forces. They didn’t even get a word out before falling under that bastard’s control. Luckily, 15 against one may sound unfair but it seemed controlling them didn’t actually give them a boost. So, they were considerably easy to dodge.

And to take out, it didn’t take more than landing a kick or punch in the right place for them to get knocked out. The challenge was hitting it. I managed to hit a few that gave me a good opportunity before I started using magic.

Now having even less effect on the zombie-soldiers. I noticed their armor glow up a little after each impact.

_Stellanium armor?! Those little shits!_

Magic had little effect on them because of the Stellanium, which was almost as resistant to magic as magic sealing stone. They weren’t very skilful, but damn, they had defense. I actually managed to rock up a bit of sweat trying to push through their defense with kicks and punches alone. It didn’t go unbruised for me. Armor isn’t exactly soft after all.

I crouched at the pain after I managed to take the last one down. My hand bleeding and bruises all over my feet and hand. Dragon slaying body saving me a bit there. Anyone else would have had a series of broken bones.

Still. The pain at my feet was just shy of being enough to not let me stand, as I even had to force myself to breathe when I wasn’t just swearing, much to that asshole’s amusement.

I wiped the blood off on my cape, clenching my jaw as I swallowed down the pain to face Zash again.

“I should have killed you the second I spotted you. But now, you’re gonna pay with more than just that.” I hissed and grabbed a sword from the soldier closest to me and took steps towards Zash again.

In a second round of trying to get a hold of him, I managed to easily pow through his defense with my magic. I didn’t want to kill him, just knock him unconscious, which is why it took longer. If I go all out I would have just ended up killing him, and I didn’t know how much that guy could take.

I quickly started dragging the guy away, the sword still on me, before the soldiers would wake up. I dragged him out of the natural crater that Altair was in to the shore. I hesitated just flying off.

Sonya was right there. I turned around and looked at the large castle with the pale blueish tower from which her magic power emanated from. She was awake…

_Sonya… I know you’re watching me._

I closed my eyes focused on the magic. For a moment I stood right in front of Sonya and was able to see her. And just like she vanished again as I opened my eyes again, letting go of what I held on to with my hand and looked at it, clenching it into a fist.

I took a deep breath. I guess I was alright with having Fairy Tail change me. I straightened out thumb and pointing finger as I looked back up at the castle and raised my hand to the sky.

“I will never break my promise again. Let me continue to watch over you.” I whispered as I turned around again, letting my arm drop down and pick up unconscious Zash and the sword from the ground, making my way towards water.

I could sense her smile as she watched me transform and fly off.

 

“Lady Sonya. You shouldn’t be up so late. You need to be well rested for the upcoming day!”

She touched the window and let a tear rolling down her face.

“Lady Sonya… what is the matter?”

“Nothing.” She said, wiping it off. “Just… an old friend.”

“My, my. I shall be right back with a tissue for you.”

 

I took Zash to the main land again, and immediately made him shut up. He woke up mid-flight and almost immediately recognized me. I pinned him on the ground with my claws face down and transformed back in such a way that my right foot was pressed against his back. Now I did what I wanted to do before he sent those soldiers at me. I shook off the mood I was in from seeing Sonya and reminded myself of why she even ended up in this position and took his right arm and pulled it up. I let the fury back in. He started to feel the pain of his arm being pulled in a direction it naturally wouldn’t go.

“You’re… Acnologia…” he mumbled while trying to move to release himself.

“And I’m going to show you exactly why I have that name.” I retorted, grinning as I pulled on his arm stronger until I could feel it giving in and snapping out of the shoulder joint with a loud crack. He barely held back a scream out of pain as he pressed his head in the ground and struggled harder against me pinning him down. I dropped his immobilized arm and reached for the other, pulling it up the same way.

“What are you… doing this for?” he yelped.

“I get a million Jewel for this.” I said coldly, cracking out his other arm too. Now he had both arms on the ground unable to really move either of them. I took a step back and grabbed the sword that stuck in the ground.

“To… kill me?”

“Officially to bring you back to Fiore. It didn’t specify the condition you had to be in.” I walked up to him again and kicked in his side, sending him flying a meter away on his back. He pushed himself against a tree to try and somehow get up. I kicked him down again, watching as he coughed out blood.

“So, Fiore has sunk as low as to ask you to do their dirty work because everyone else capable of it they just send to prison.” He laughed. “Just because they can’t imprison you they are ready to pay you so you’re not starting anything!”

“You have two dislocated arms and internal wounds. And yet you think it’s a wise idea to pick a fight with me.” I said, pointing the sword at his throat. He stilled. “This is what you do with the ones you harm to use your magic, right?” I started pressing it down and slowly moving it down, paying attention to not hit the vital vein. The cut it left started bleeding and drops started running down his throat. I looked at Zash trying to hide his pain.

“You are a disgrace to the people able to use variations of Soul Magic. Karma is a bitch, isn’t it?!” I laughed as I rammed the sword right through his left side and started twisting the sword while still stuck before pulling it out after an almost 45 degrees turn.  I wasn’t hitting anything vital and any human being is sturdy enough to remain conscious and alive.

“Says… he, oh great… King… of absolutely… nothing.” He breathed heavily.

“Such words of flattery. I’m almost convinced to let you live…” I chuckled sarcastically as I stabbed down again, this time targeting just below his ribs watching him as blood started bubbling out of his mouth.

He was lying on the floor trying desperately to move. I sat down and inspected the sword while watching Zash.

“Blade made from Stellanium, eh? They make everything out of this stuff.” I muttered. It was surprisingly sharp, but Stellanium has some interesting properties. I got up. “Let’s see what this this can really do.” I said slicing across Zash’s face, leaving a trail from his left side over his eye to his nose, the sword leaving a large cut on the nose, having severely damaged the bone.

I lifted the sword and gave it an approving nod as I sat back down and continued watching Zash bleed out slowly. He started coughing and splatting blood everywhere.

“Oh? You won’t drown on your own blood before you die from blood loss, will you?” I chuckled as I started cleaning the blade. He slowly turned his head to me opening his mouth to say something. But all that came out was a bubbly grunt. I smirked and waved as the remaining life vanished from him.

“Nope. Blood loss wins.” I sighed as I wrapped the sword in the cloth band and tied it around my waist again. It wasn’t well secured but it did the trick for not having to carry it.

I didn’t bother about the mess I created, called Hisui I’d be back the following night and flew back.

This would have been a lot quicker if he hadn’t decided to piss me off on so many levels. He just made me want to see him suffer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 18 - The Quiet Before The Storm


	18. The Qiet Before The Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let it begin!

It was night again when I landed outside of Crocus in the mountains and hiked down to the city. I dragged Zash behind me. The flight was long enough so I didn’t have to worry about leaving a blood trail, not that I cared at the time anyway. Part of me even missed it a little to walk through the woods dragging along a corpse, but this time was not the Dragon Civil War.

I could hear Anna’s pleads for me to stop even now, especially clearly knowing that she is alive. It was her that dragged five children into this future with no sense of preservation for the sheer sake of ridding the world of the dragon legacy. And why she went along is beyond me, just as much as why in the world she thought it’d be a good idea to also bring along her own daughter too. _Our_ daughter.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when I noticed the lacrima going off. The grey snap-on to be specific. I was already inside the cave below the arena when I noticed it. I dropped the ugly face and set up the lacrima to respond, letting it float in the air as I sat down against a rock.

“What do you want, Gajeel?”

“Actually, it’s me, Levy!” she responded. I gave a questioning peak at the lacrima seeing Levy slightly blurred on it.

“You have your own lacrima, why call me from Gajeels?”

“I broke mine…” she replied with an embarrassed smirk. “I’m waiting for replacement from Warren.”

“How’d you manage that…?”

“Uhm… well… It involved some iron… that… uhh – “

“You and Gajeel fucked and you managed to break it somehow?” I asked bluntly. Levy turned beat red as I laughed.

“Y-yea…”

“I know you guys like it loud and kinky, but using a lacrima for – “

“It’s nothing like that!!!” She cried. “We just knocked it off the shelf and it shattered…”

“Yea, yea.” I smirked at her. “It’s always the quiet ones isn’t it?” I laughed. The glare I received from her was even funnier.

And then Levy smirked as I heard a crackle from the other side coming from Gajeels lacrima.

“Got it!” she grinned as she waved into the room.

“Got what?”

“I took a picture of that smirk!” she laughed as her grin grew wider.

“Hey! That’s copyrighted!!!” I yelled into the lacrima earning laughter from Levy.

“Uh-huh,” she smirked back with sarcasm. “You’d have to sue my husband for copyright offense then. It’s the exact same.”

“Oh, maybe I will!”

“It’s not my fault ya made a physical copy of yerself, dad.” Gajeel snickered.

“Physical copy? Hm… I believe I gotta try again for that, last time I tried it seems I ran out of brown color. It turned out all mushy and pale.” I teased back.

Levy just amusedly chuckled at the side.

“Try again with who…?” he crossed his arms.

“There are plenty of options.” I retorted.

“Pff.” he began to laugh at me.

“I swear one of these days I’m going to personally remove those studs from your face!”

“Only if I get to pull out some of your scales!”

“Oh, I’d appreciate that! I hate it when they get stuck in my wings. It’s a pain to pool them out.”

“What…?” Gajeel looked both awkward and disgusted. I shrugged.

“Dragons are reptiles. They shed. That thought hasn’t occurred to you yet?”

“Uuuhhhhhhhhh…”

Me and Levy laughed at Gajeels blank stare.

“Relax. It’s not like I just drop all scales at the same time and have to awkwardly wait for them to regrow. It’s one at a time.”

Levy already knew. She stumbled in on me while I was playing around with a decently sized oval shaped blue scale that had recently dropped off.  Just like any other dragon’s scales, they lost their color a few days later.

“I still have that scale of yours from a few weeks ago actually! I carved it into a circle and it works perfectly as a trivet!” Levy said sweetly.

“Wait, our new trivet is one of his dumped scales?!” Gajeel yelled in shock.

“Yep! I’m thinking about letting the kids paint on it since it’s white now.” She said sweetly.

I laughed, shook my head with a smile. Levy squeeled when she turned to the Lacrima again and saw me smiling. Of course, she immediately took another picture of it.

“STOP TAKING PICTURES OF ME!” I yelled again.

“Oh come on, don’t be like that!” Levy crackled. “I hope you’ll be back soon, Lo – “

“Don’t you dare call me Logia-kun…”

“Aww come on.” She smiled sheepishly.

“No! I’ll be back by tomorrow night.” I replied.

“So… Ya finished the job…?” Gajeel questioned with a frown and silent but hearable resentment.

“Yea.”

“No wonder yer in a good mood. Should’ve known that murder’s the only thing that gets a fucking psycho like _you_ upbeat.” He sneered at me. I looked down at the ground.

“Gajeel!” Levy shouted angrily.

“Consider yourself lucky that you’re my son.” I said coldly, not looking at the lacrima and quickly ended the call.

looked over to at the lifeless body I dumped into the muddy ground. In a sudden rush of fury, I snapped and crushed his head with a burst of magic power and ramming the sword through him again before I let myself fall back against the rock again and let myself sink to the ground while burying my face in hair.

 

“Gajeel! What was that for?”

“What? It’s true. Ya can’t deny the fact that he killed at least five more people, if not more, ever since the truce deal! He deserves to be called out!”

“That doesn’t change the fact that he’s your father!”

“Pff. He knows the judgement he receives for his actions. He’s just an old, bitter and overly aggressive asshole.” Gajeel walked away angrily, his steps heavy on the ground. Levy remained still.

“I know that you resent this decision to carry out the kingdoms dirty work. I do as well. But... Think about how you would feel if our kids would call you out on what you did to me all those years back…”

Gajeel stopped walking and turned a little.

“That’s not even comparable, Lev.” He said with some pain in his voice.

“The crime maybe not. But the feeling is. Words can hurt more than physical wounds.”

“He can feel…?”

Levy walked up to Gajeel and hugged him.

“He’s trying, Gajeel. You can’t expect him to make a u-turn like you did in mere months. He did too much, lived for too long and been through too much for that to be possible. You told me that during the big fight he told you all that his family was devoured by dragons. He’s been through a horrible war, he lost so much.” Levy said almost sobbing.

“I know…” Gajeel hugged her back, lowering his head to kiss her forehead.

“I know it may not seem like it, but he loves you, Gajeel. You’re his son. And I get the feeling that he is a lot more emotionally fragile that he lets us see…”

“How do ya know?”

“Have you ever seen him sleeping?”

Gajeel shook his head.

“I saw it when you were out on a job and I had Lucy over after going out for dinner. He was watching the kids. We came back to see he fell asleep on the bean bag in the living room. He curled up into a ball tightly clutching his cape around him and burying his face in the cloth. And… He looked sad.”

Gajeels grimace vanished.

“Lucy looked over a few times when we had some drinks and she got up and put a blanket on him. It took a few minutes of him shuffling around, but he completely wrapped himself in that blanket, so the only thing visible was his hair. It was kind of cute. That was also why I started calling him Logia-kun.”

Levy looked up at Gajeel, smiling gently.

“Ya should have taken a picture.” Gajeel responded sweetly.

“I know. I didn’t think about it… But I hope you know what I’m trying to tell you. There’s a side to him that he doesn’t show. And watching him sleep makes me think that he buried that side of him deep inside of himself. He will need our help and time to change. That also means that we have to simply live with it when he's sometimes going insane or makes bad decisions.” Levy raised her hand to Gajeels face and went through his hair. “Our job merely is to not let him slip away and pull him out of the darkness when he is in danger of falling in, and that includes fixing our own mistakes.”

“I know. I’ll apologize first thing when he’s back.”

“Thank you Gajeel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 19 - Spiraling Into Free Fall


	19. Spiraling Into Free Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im just gonna binge post.i got til chapter 23 and i really crave to get these chapters out xD

I just sat there. Against the rock with my head buried in my head and hair hanging everywhere in front of my face trying to remember a time when I was not like this. And I couldn’t. I had happy memories of before I lost my family, but I can’t remember a time when I was not… well… like this. I needed to get away from where I was sitting. The smell of a dead body aging was only fueling the fire.

I shook my head free of the thoughts and when that didn’t seem to work I took a deep breath and bit hard into my hand drawing blood. It was a habit I had for a while, not being able to calm down unless the jolts of pain overwrote whatever I was thinking. I had to make them shut up or I’d just go on a killing spree and destroy everything I tried to build up in the past months.

I grabbed the lacrima again, now inserting the green snap-on and jolted it with magic. Hisui responded shortly after. When her face popped up in the lacrima she had a stoic posture, but it vanished quickly to a worried frown.

“You look like a mess. Are you alright?” she asked.

Only then I realized I hadn’t taken care of how I looked. Hair was still scattered everwhere. I shuffled around a little adjusting hair and cape.

“Better?”

“You know, you need to take of yourself too.” She smiled.

“Since when are you worried about me?”

“I generally care for everybody.”

“Yea I noticed. Anyway. Need proof that I got the job done?” I asked her.

“To be honest. No, I don’t. Asking you to hunt someone specific down is like asking the sun to rise the next day.”

“Did you just compare murder to sunrise…? I feel like that metaphor doesn’t work…”

“So, you brought him back dead after all.” She looked away.

“I keep my promises. Always.”

“For some reason you didn’t strike me as someone who would lie or break agreements. Or promises.” She paused. “Can you meet me now? I’m located directly under Domus Flau. The arena. There’s an underground room that was established when researching the graveyard.”

“What about that jackass?”

“Just… remember where you left him. The council’s men will pick him up.”

I nodded, ended the call and got up. Top most section wasn’t too far. I just needed to find the way up. I pulled out the sword and cleaned it again.

Five minutes of walking around I reached the place I had to be. I trailed the rails up and after another minute or two Hisui came into view. Together with a tall man in armor.

He took one look at me to notice the sword in my hand. He stepped in front of Hisui in a protective manner, having his hand on his own sword. I looked at the Stellanium sword and back at him.

“This? Call it a souvenir from Stella.” I said flatly.

“Archadios. Please. We are not in danger.” Hisui pleaded.

“As long as you don’t decide to threaten me that is.” I grinned and pointed the sword at him. A few moments of silence went by before I lowered the sword again. Hisui shuffled herself around the guy and approached me.

“You had to trail him all the way to Stella?”

“Yea. Also, put attempted murder in several cases on his list and possibly malicious intend considering he was dead set on the goal of reaching Sonya.”

“Oh my. I apologize for the long trip.”

I shrugged.

“Eh. I got something from it. Do you have anything to put it in? I’m sick of carrying it around.”

“We’ll send something to Gajeel and Levy to pick up. Do you mind leaving it here to make something that fits it?”

“I don’t mind.”

“Also, another thing. As an act of truce, we thought of giving you a gift.” She hinted. “We don’t want to bother you with it, so we asked Gajeel to give us the required info since you two appear to be pretty identical in terms of built and height.”

“Get to the point…” I sighed.

“Right. We had our weaponry staff come up with something for you in cooperation with a few doctors in crocus and a specialist in magic artillery and – “

“The point?” I asked.

“I was just about to say that.” She chuckled. “How does having a left arm sound to you?”

I gave her a confused glare. A left arm wouldn’t be too bad. Having only one was really fucking irritating at times.

“A prosthetic left arm.” She clarified. “One that you can channel magic through. I doubt it will be the same but I’m sure you’ll be quick to learn how to do it. And we managed to make it very sturdy and only taking little practice to get used to since you’ll need magic power to have the joints respond to your nervous system. But it doesn’t make more sound that any normal joint. We used – “

“Cut the science. I’ll take it.” I said, grinning a little. Those were the best news I heard in a _while_.

“I shall understand that grin as you being happy to hear that.” She smirked. “It should be finished in about three to four weeks. I’ll send it to Magnolia the second it is finished.”

I gave her an approving nod.

She proceeded to hand me the Jewel that were my reward. And an envelope that I was to open later when I was alone.

We cut the rest short. It was just past 11 at night and I figured I could use the night now to get home early. I had originally thought that there was more to discuss with Hisui than that short conversation, but she knew I hated when it was all dragged out, so we decided to simply agree on mutual trust. We also agreed that when it came up I would carry out the kingdoms dirty work and I wouldn’t be charged for my crimes as long as I made an effort to fix that problem.

 

When I arrived back in Magnolia and made my way through town the light was still on in the house. It was Friday, so I figured the kids were allowed to stay up long. I rang the bell and unlocked the door calling into the house. Mere seconds later the stairs drummed, and two kids sprung at me. I got down on my knees and gave them a short hug and both a pat on the head. Levy was next.

“Welcome back. Didn’t you say you’d arrive tomorrow?”

“Yea. Hisui kept it shorter than I expected so I didn’t have to wait another day to be able to make it back here.”

“I see. Uhm… Also, about Gajeel, he – “

“Whatever it is, I want to hear it from him in person.”

“Right.” She had a look around the hall and called into the house. “Gajeel. He’s back early. Come on. You promised me something!”

“I’m in the kitchen. I need a drink.” I said, shaking off the kids and heading to the kitchen grabbing a bottle of Sake from the alcohol shelf and poured it in a glass and chugged it.

“You have a bad habit of drinking too fast, you know?” Levy stood in the door looking at me pouring a second glass. “This isn’t stuff against thirst.”

“I know. There’s just a lot on my mind and I already left a mark on my hand from earlier trying to make it calm down a little.”

“You what?!” she hurried over and grabbed my wrist looking at the wound. It was small but noticeable. “Don’t hurt yourself. Instead, talk to us when something is wrong!”

“That’s good advice when I’m met with contempt.” I growled, taking a sip from the glass. “I just love it. I have to.”

There were footsteps coming down the stairs. Gajeel’s.

“Look, even then, I know you try to make bad thoughts stay away but hurting yourself isn’t the way to go about it!” Levy worried. The footsteps came to an abrupt halt just before the kitchen. “Even if it does work! I don’t want to see one more self-inflicted wound on you, okay?”

I sighed. It wasn’t even big. In fact, it didn’t look like more than a bigger splinter was stuck in it. I got up and towards the kitchen door.

“I heard you coming downstairs, Gajeel. There’s something you want to tell me, right? Then endure whatever else you caused that you didn’t see.” I hissed.

“What? Did you kill another?” he growled back, not in a good mood from what happened earlier.

“Gajeel!” Levy warned, but I was faster.

I slapped him. His face stayed turned away as he let his shoulders drop.

“If you’re not in a good mood because of what you said, then don’t expect me to be in any better state of mind."

“I… I’m sorry dad. I shouldn’t have said that. I take it back.”

“Did you know that not thinking before you speak, and murder have a lot of things in common?” I asked bluntly. Both Gajeel and Levy looked at me. “It’s permanent and leaves permament scars on whoever it harms.” I paused. “You can’t take it back.”

I emptied the glass and instead of pouring another I took the whole bottle, smiled at Levy and walked past Gajeel without a single reaction to my room. My thoughts were still racing. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep with this, but I didn’t want to stay in the kitchen longer. I locked the door to my room and sat down at the desk starting to mess around with whatever I had and drank a little more.

 

“He really hurt himself because of what I said?” Gajeel asked, leaning against the wall, burying his head in his hands.

“I told you he isn’t stable. He’s trying to get better, but he can’t unless he finds a way to deal with whatever triggers his aggression. And it seems hurting himself, even if it’s just biting himself is working, but it’s dangerous. What if it stops working and he goes for something worse that a bite mark on his hand?”

“Mhm… I hope he listens to you on that. But… you noticed _that_ too, didn’t you?” he signaled over to the empty glass left on the kitchen table.

“Yes, I have. He started to drink more lately.”

“We have to keep an eye on that too or he’s spiraling himself into depression.”

“I fear that he’s already in free fall…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 20 - Drowning Frustration


	20. Drowning Frustration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go. this is about to get wild

I somehow managed to get myself way too drunk that night. I probably shouldn’t have gotten that second bottle, I didn’t even manage to finish it all. Either way, I had a major headache as I came upstairs, finding Levy currently preparing food.

“Oh, you’re up! Good morning sleepy-head.” Levy teased.

“Huh?” I rubbed my eyes. “How long was I out?”

“Well. You actually woke up yesterday, but you were a mess and still not sober, so we gave you something that would knock you back to sleep.”

“ _Yestderday_?”

“It’s Sunday.” She chuckled.

“You made me sleep through the _entirety_ of Saturday?!” I roared.

“At least you’re sober now. We’ll need to talk about that with Gajeel by the way.”

“About _what_?” I said sharply, sticking my head in the fridge to find something edible.

“Therapy.” She said turning the vegetables in the pan. I stopped just as I grabbed a few mini salamis out of a small container. “Uhm. You are aware I’m making food, right?”

I looked at her in disbelief. The atmosphere in the kitchen suddenly got tense as my expression grew to angry. Gajeel came in.

“We thought it may be an option to help ya find ways to manage yerself.” He said, taking over the cooking from Levy. “You know. Anger management and so on.”

“Forget it!” I hissed as I slammed the fridge door close and rushed out the kitchen.

“Dad! Come on, at least hear – “ Gajeel walked after me. I turned around quickly and stared right in his face.

“If you think I’m going to sit there and let some _random_ _ass_ _person_ ask me questions I can answer myself, you’re _dead_ wrong!”

“It’s not random – “

“I don’t. _Fucking_. CARE!” I almost exploded as I frowned my way to the door, took the keys and went out. Just as I was about to shut the door, Gajeel held it open. I gave him an angry glare, but he didn’t flinch. I turned around and kicked him backwards, slamming the door shut and leaving, angrily chewing on the mini salamis.

For some reason my way ended at Fairy Tails guild door and I let myself in. It grew dead silent the second I entered the guild and walked up to the counter and sat down.

“You look upset.” Mirjane broke the silence from behind the counter, washing glasses.

“I need a drink…” I responded, letting my head fall on the counter. “something hard.”

“54% rum?” she asked.

“Two glasses” raising two fingers

Mirajane hesitated but poured me them. I slammed down a few Jewel and grabbed them, clamping them together with one hand and sat down, unaware that it was one table away from there Natsu’s group were sitting. I took a long sip from the first cup. Lucy decided to take the initiative to come over.

“It’s not even noon yet you know?” she said in a warning but concerned tone. I looked at her.

“That doesn’t seem to bother _her_ , though.” I pointed at the woman that sat at the other end of the table drinking and sorting cards. She noticed and looked over with a tipsy frown.

“Cana? Well…” Lucy tried to find the right words. “Well, you know how she is. But from you this is new.”

“It is, but I like it!” Cana laughed as she came over with her massive glass of wine and seated herself next to me.

“You reek of alcohol, woman.” I said dryly.

“I don’t need to be a dragon slayer to tell that you haven’t taken care of your terrible alcoholic breath either.” She laughed, lightly hitting me on the shoulder, taking another sip.

I glared at her.

“Since when did we became buddies that you hit me?” I growled.

“Ever since you started drinking. I was craving a drinking buddy since Bacchus won’t be around for a while.”

She rose her glass of wine to me. I sighed in annoyance, raised mine and let the glass chime. We both poured down our drinks in one breath. When we stopped at the same time, we looked at each other.

“There’s just one small thing you need to do to prove yourself worthy.” She said tipsily, smirking.

 “Fine.” I grinned back.

 

Her challenge was to drink her under. Something apparently only Bacchus ever managed to do. We settled at the bar after I downed the second glass of rum and started going for shots. We didn’t care what and it ended up in the guild calling which Alcohol should be poured.

It was a mess.

“I’m imp-ressed!” Canna stuttered. “You’re good!”

“I… got a reputation… to hold.” I responded. Trying not to stutter to not sound drunk but I was. More than Cana was anyway.

We slammed the shot glasses on the table. It was sake, which was a small break. A small one.

“Do Tequila next!” someone roared, and others joined in too. I turned around, almost falling off my chair.

“We already haaad Tequila like fiive tiiiimmmes!” I protested. But Mirajane already poured the shots and put them down in front of us. I turned around picking up the glass, shortly glaring at Cana already having emptied hers. “Oh for fucks sake…” I complained and downed mine.

“Who knew he gets so talkative when drinking” Happy said surprised.

“Men…” Carla simply replied. Both flying over us, watching.

“Who is everyone betting on?” Macao yelled as he came to the front.

There was a moment of silence in the guild as everyone looked at me and Cana pouring another Tequila.

“Cana.” Everyone said in agreement.

“Fucking traitors!” I hissed at the dragon slayers currently entering the bet.

“Just cuz you got the title doesn’t make us your personal army, you know?” Laxus said bluntly.

I growled at him.

“Disobedient little shits.” I muttered and poured down another as I ignored the laughter in the room.

Wendy came up to the bar letting Carla land in her arms. Despite being in her mid-teens she was still rather small for her age group. And still just as polite but having earned her quirks.

“I didn’t vote.” She smiled

“You know youuu are a gooood girl, Wendy!” I replied, as I dropped my hand on her head., drunkily ruffling her hair.

“I just didn’t have money. I would have placed a bet on Canna, too” she continued. I choked on my drink. “if I had something on me and I didn’t want to take someone elses.”

“Who raised you to be such a smart ass?”

“Anna spent a lot of time with me during the last few years.”

I stilled. Of _course_ , it would be _Anna’s_ smart mouth to be the one that rubs off on what was probably the purest part of me. I grabbed the bottle and took large sips from it directly, not noticing how it grew quieter in the guild. Cana was also downing alcohol. I pulled Wendy in having my arm around her and hand on her head.

“Yooouu should know smthing, Anna’s – “

“What in the _world_ is going on here?!” Makarov roared. I turned around to look at him in his wheel chair and Jet pushing him.

“Master! Welcome back!” Mirajane said sweetly, as always completely oblivious to the tension she just broke.

I took another sip of alcohol as I laughed off the tension. Makarov buried his face in his hands.

“Who let Acnologia drink this much…?” he asked in a slightly disappointing tone “You know he has no sense of when to stop drinking…” Everyone was awkwardly shuffling around, trying to hide the evidence of a very obvious guild party starring a drinking contest and bets with money. He sighed as he took another look at me, lying down on the bar counter laughing. “Someone get him back home, please? Gajeel and Levy know how to best handle him.”

He took a look around as everybody scrambled backwards. Even Wendy. Understandably. There was no way she could have carried me.

“Any volunteers or do you all want him to sober up in here?” Makarov said a little louder, now with a warning tone.

The pause felt longer than it was until someone stepped out.

“I know the way to Levy’s house…” Lucy sighed. “I’ll make sure he gets back there before he passes out. I wanted to ask about Aquarius anyway.”

Natsu looked at her with a slight frown. He knew Lucy had stopped feeling complete disgust for me. She still hated me, but she started to make an effort. First had been Wendy, but more due to her overly polite nature, but she was getting used to dealing with me too.

“Thank you, Lucy.” Makarov watched as Lucy walked up to the front. “The rest of you, clean up this place. You made a mess!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 21 - Fire and Water - Part 1


	21. Fire and Water - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here the tag "what have i done" and "the author regrets nothing" come into play.

She dragged me along on her back, clutching my arm around her so I wouldn’t fall off since I was barely able to walk myself. I had tried. And it resulted in a lot of falling over.

“You should really start taking care of yourself, you know?” Lucy said worriedly as she stopped to readjust how she was carrying me and continued walking.

I didn’t say anything.

“You shouldn’t be drinking so much, or at least know when to stop. And don’t think I missed the wound on your hand.” She continued. “You know we only tell you this because we don’t want you to slip after all that happened.”

I looked at her. And for that moment she reminded me so much of Anna.

“I don’t know if the others trust you, I doubt that I fully trust you either, but I want to see the good in you, just like Levy and Gajeel do. And if they found something in you that’s worth believing in, then I – “

I took a step on the ground, pulled at Lucy tugging her back towards me and lowered my face onto her shoulder, holding her more tightly than I probably intended. But she was so much like Anna. Always seeing the good in people even it was barely there. It took a second for her to thaw out from her surprise.

“There it is. The thing I knew you had but wouldn’t ever show.” She said softly, but slightly awkward. “I was right all along! You have a good side.” She smiled. Her right hand back holding onto my arm, her left hand now on my head, stroking me. “Let’s get you back, you drunkard.” She chuckled as she started walking again, slowly dragging me along.

It took a while, since Lucy wasn’t used to carrying someone a lot larger than her around. And despite not eating a lot I wasn’t the lightest guy around either. But she managed, rang on the bell and gave an awkward smile to a surprised Levy as she opened the door.

“I think your dragon escaped the basement. He ran wild on our liquor.” She chuckled. Levy could only stare back in awkward silence and Gajeel facepalmed as he arrived at the door too. With an annoyed sigh he took me off Lucy and settled me into the bean bag.

“How much did he drink…?” Levy asked carefully.

“Two cups of 54% rum, pure, and I believe over twenty shots of whatever. I didn’t pay attention to what exactly Mira poured him and Cana.” Lucy responded.

“He got himself into a drinkin’ contest with that drunkard?!” Gajeel snapped. “The liquor cabinet is locked from now on, dad! No more from us!” he growled at me. I simply waved at him signaling to shut up.

“You raware I… can jus buy m-ooown?” I reminded him, half talking into the giant pillow.

“We’re puttin’ ya on budget!” he hissed back, earning a loud and annoyed sigh from me into the pillow.

“Is that really for the best?” Lucy asked Levy raising an eyebrow.

“Restricting him is the only thing he seems to respond to…”

Lucy sighed and looked back at me with my face buried in the pillow. She walked up to me and took out a hair tie, proceeding to get all my hair, going through it to get out a few knots that bothered her and tied them back.

“In case he starts throwing up. Trust me, getting vomit out of hair is a painful and disgusting task. It happened to Cana a few times when I dragged her away from alcohol. And considering how much he has, this would save you a lot of trouble.” She explained, still going through my hair getting the knots out with her fingers.

“He never lets us do that. He gets angry at us the second we do anything with his hair, even when he is drunk like that…” Levy sighed. “It seems you’re the only one he allows to touch it even”

“But it’s so soft!” Lucy said, giggling after hearing me growl.

“Guess who’s payin’ for the amount of conditioner he needs.” Gajeel growled.

“Like _you_ need any less.” Levy snickered giving him a teasing smirk as she started playing around with his hair, earning a frown from him.

Lucy and Levy laughed.

“I’m still amazed by how much you are alike.” Lucy giggled. Levy nodding in agreement.

“We’re not that identical!” Gajeel hissed.

“Heee’s ‘ight!” came from me into the pillow.

“They even agree on wanting to convince us of otherwise!” Levy laughed. Her and Lucy completely bursting out in laughter as both Gajeel and me gave the exact same annoyed sigh from us. Simultaneously.

“Thank you for taking care of him, Lu-chan.” Levy said sweetly.

“Sure. I’ve taken care of Cana plenty of times, so I thought I could handle him, too.” Lucy replied smiling. She let go of my hair, having just finished combing it with the hands, and curled it into a pile. “Do you know if he used the key to track Aquarius already?” she asked. Levy shook her head.

“Don neeeed to.” I said. “I cn track’er any time ywant.”

“Then what did you need the key for?” Lucy turned to me, sounding slightly offended.

“I’ll tell you when we go.” I shuffled myself into sitting position. “Oi, Gajeel. Got ny blank lacrima snapns?”

Gajeel got me some. I took one and sparked it with my magic. It turned a dark greyish blue.

“Lemme know when.” I said turning to Lucy giving her the snap-on. She hesitated but gave me one too. Golden. I fumbled it on the chain attached to the lacrima that held all the snap-ons before I let myself drop back on the pillow curling up. Something I always do unconsciously before sleeping.

“…Thanks. I’ll shoot you a message. We have the week off because we have to wait on a few things for our job.” She said. “It should be a good time then.”

I raised a thumb as an OK and threw a blanket over me as she said her goodbye to Levy and Gajeel and returned to the guild with an exited grin.

 

“You were gone for a while…” Natsu said, stabbing into his food.

“You expect me to be able to carry this guy all the way to Levy’s house in a matter of minutes?” she returned with friendly sarcasm and sat down next too him. “Where are the others?”

“Erza is meeting Jellal, Gray is escaping from Juvia and Wendy and Carla are at the dorms packing.” Happy replied.

“They said they wanted to use the free week to visit Chelia at Lamia Scale and on the way back stop by Anna’s place for dinner.” Natsu continued.

“Anna?” Lucy asked. “Well. They are quite close after all. That reminds me that I should probably visit her soon too. I haven’t seen her since last year’s Grand Magic Games.”

“She was over a few times though. She still doesn’t know ‘bout that piece of shit Gramps decided to take in.” Natsu growled.

“It’s better that way. We’ll tell her eventually. And I get Master for not letting anyone speak of him outside of Magnolia.”

Happy tried to cheer up Natsu, who simply stabbed into his food.

“I guess he wants to wait until he’s a bit more used to social situations. And with those other creeping problems I don’t think it’s wise involving Anna in it now, since she sacrificed a lot to go through with the 400-year plan. But he isn’t all that bad you know. I’m not asking you to forgive or trust him, at least try to not pick at him when he’s over, Natsu. Even if it’s just frowns.” Lucy said gently, patting on his back.

“Of course, _you_ would defend him.” Natsu hissed and quickly got up.

“Natsu! Where is this coming from?” Lucy followed.

“I trailed behind you to make sure you’re safe and I saw him hug you and digging his face into your shoulder, and I saw that you went through his hair.” Natsu growled angrily. Lucy sighed.

“I did nothing different than what I do when I make sure Cana gets home when she drank too much! This has nothing to do with him, and you know that.”

“You were quite enjoying yourself, though…”

“You know I always try to see the good in someone and noticing that he seems to trust me enough to show some of his good side just made me happy!” Lucy protested.

“Yea. His _good_ side.” Natsu snapped earning a strong slap in the face from her. She started crying as she left towards the back door. “Lucy, I didn’t mean it in _that_ way! I’m sorry!” he shouted after her, but Lucy slammed the door in front of his face.

Lisanna came up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I know it’s frustrating for you, Natsu. She knows you suffered the most because of him. She feels bad for caring, but you know Lucy simply is that way. She cares about everyone, no matter how little good is inside of them.” Lisanna said gently.

“I’ll go talk to Lucy.” Mirajane involved herself. “You two are too good of friends to be fighting like this.” She added as she pressed down the door knob to the guilds back yard.

She walked out and found Lucy crying and pressing her knees to her face.

“Lucy?” she said, sitting down next to her rubbing shoulders on her back. “Please, I don’t like seeing you cry.” She hugged Lucy warmly.

“I can’t do anything right anymore with Natsu ever since…”

“ _He_ showed up? That’s hardly your fault Lucy! You can’t blame yourself for caring. I admit I also care. And he’s been peaceful with us. Sure, he may mess up here and there, but everyone can see that he tries not to, even if it takes a closer look to notice it.” She comforted. “And surely you can’t under no circumstance blame yourself for the way he feels about you.”

“What do you mean?” Lucy asked.

“Well… I don’t know why, but you noticed too that you tend to trip him up a little. When you first interacted about Aquarius, remember? That you’re allowed to do things that no one else is, like the thing with his hair, and that he seems to trust you more than anyone else. I think he took a bit of a shine on you.” Mira smiled.

“I know. I noticed all those things…”

“And so has Natsu, that’s why he acts this way, because he is protective of you. He couldn’t adjust to this change at all and now seeing those things and you letting _him_ in…”

“I love _Natsu_!” Lucy protested.

“I wasn’t implying that you had feelings for anyone else. But you will need to tell him that at some point or I fear you two may break under the weight that Acnologia puts on you. You can feel what others feel, and your caring nature makes you take a lot of his weight on us all solely on you.”

Lucy dropped her head back on her knees and looked out at the big lake that stretched behind the guild.

“I know, Mira. It’s just… We’ve been friends for _years_ , what if we don’t work out? What if Natsu says no?! I’ll lose him forever!” Lucy sobbed.

“Oh, Lucy… come here.” Mira patted her head and pulled her in for a hug. “You won’t _ever_ lose him. No matter what happens, I know he will stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 22 - Fire and Water - Part 2


	22. Fire and Water - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is going to be a mess...

Wendy and Carla had left the next day on their way to Lamia, Gray and Juvia found even ground again, and Natsu and Lucy stopped arguing. Somewhat.

I was at the guild on Mondays witnessing them argue while I was snacking on leftovers from Levy’s breakfast. I swallowed the fact that I couldn’t taste. It just meant I had to savor the smell more. And let’s face it. Levy’s waffles smelled AMAZING.

“You know, if you’re throwing insults at me, at least do it so I can’t hear you.” I said to Natsu, walking past their table on my way to the bar. He snarled back giving me an angry frown.

“You aren’t going to drink again, are you?” Lucy asked.

“Stop me.” I said bluntly. Just a second after being pulled back at my cape. I turned and looked at her straight in her stern expression.

“Not today.” She said. Her voice just as stern. “I need you.” Those words taking both me and Natsu out of it. I grimaced, questioning what she means. Natsu just outright stood up and almost started yelling. “Aquarius’ key?” she then asked as an answer.

I stared at her for apparently a second too long when I felt Natsu hitting me straight in the face with fire and sent me tumbling back.

“Stop staring at her!”

I was just pissed. I walked back to the table and stood right in front of him, glaring at him.

“I suggest you do that again.” I huffed.

“You’re asking for it!”

“Natsu! Stop!” Lucy interrupted as Happy flew on his shoulder ready to pull him back. “Don’t take his bait!”

I smirked. Then got hit on the head by a rolled magazine Lucy had with her. I shot her an angry glare.

“And you, don’t bait him! Ever heard of peaceful coexistence?”

“Between Dragon and Human? Last time they tried that it ended in war. That’s not what I think peaceful means.” I chuckled back

Lucy didn’t have a counter at that, Natsu held back his anger and everyone else in the guild who had noticed us drabble just stared blankly at me.

“What? Prove me wrong.” I shrugged and continued walking to the bar, sitting down and eating the rest of the waffles out of a box.

“He’s a piece of work…” Lucy sighed, and walked to the bar too. “So, when will you tell me where the key is?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“I’ll take you there.”

“Not a chance!” Natsu hissed defensively. “Just tell us where it is, and your part in this is done.”

“Look, I get you want to have as little to do with me as possible, but you really want to spend your entire week off looking for a key when you can get it done in two days by simply exploiting my ability to fly?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yes!”

“Okay, have fun. The key is in the north-eastern part of Seven.” I turned back to my food.

Natsu was pleased and wanted to leave. Lucy didn’t budge.

“So, you would fly us there?” she asked. I turned around again.

“It only takes a few hours to fly there.”

“We are NOT flying!” Natsu protested.

“Natsu, it will take us the whole week to even get to that part of Seven!” Lucy protested back.

“What’s so bad about flying? It’s the best part of the trip! At least for me.” I grinned sarcastically. Knowingly.

“Why don’t you want to fly…?” Lucy asked carefully.

“He’s a vehicle…” Natsu said, turning slightly blue and holding a hand in front of his mouth, feeling sick. I laughed at him. Lucy made a face.

“How did I forget that…” she chuckled.

“If you don’t want to fly I suppose I just take Lucy and head off then.” I leaned back against the counter. Lucy hit my head again with the rolled magazine, shooting me a deadly glare. “You know I’d appreciate it if you stopped hitting me with a fucking magazine, woman!”

“Stop placing baits then! I already asked him to not pick on you. I ask the same of you!” she warned. I huffed.

“I’d rather endure hours of motion sickness than to let _you_ be alone with Lucy!” he hissed. I shrugged and got up depositing the now empty container.

 

Lucy enjoyed flying. Mainly because I let her sit on my back rather than having her in my hand where I already had Natsu to avoid him barfing all over my scales.

“Being a dragon isn’t so bad in your opinion, apparently.” She smiled, hugging a sleeping Happy. “Flying through the night like this and always having clear view on the stars when above the clouds…”

I flipped my wings one more time and then pressed them back sending us all into a free fall while spinning. Right through the clouds. Lucy was too surprised by suddenly losing a way to stand and shortly after started screaming and whirling around trying to break her fall. I pulled up slowly, letting her land back on me on my head and started laughing. Natsu just got straight up knocked out.

“Yea, flying isn’t too bad” I laughed.

 “You’re the worst!” she cried.

“What? Surprised?”

“Not really, no!” she cried. Angrily now while kicking into my scales.

 

“How long have we been flying?” Lucy asked sleepily. She had fallen asleep a while back after asking me if I could fly a little slower, so she didn’t have to hold on to not fall over. Even Natsu had fallen asleep. But more because of exhaustion than being actually tired. Happy had woken up too and was taking care of Natsu now.

“About four hours. It should be somewhere around two in the morning now. Another hour and we’re there.” I responded. “I can do it in half an hour if you let me fly faster again.”

“Half an hour. I’m hungry and tired.”

“Right.”

Just after another half an hour had passed I decided to land on one of the mountains in a cave I spotted. It wasn’t the closest location to the key but the furthest from any kind of civilization. I put Natsu down and let Lucy slide walk down from a wing before I turned back.

“It’s freezing here…” Lucy shuffled around trying to cover as much of her under the blanket Natsu brought along.

“You aren’t exactly dressed for the weather here.” I chuckled.

“Says you. You may wear shirts now but still walk around barefoot.” She leaned against a rock, now pulling out some food from Natsu’s backpack. She opened the metal container and sighed.

“What is it?”

“This needs to be heated…”

I walked over and took the container and started warming it with a bit of fire magic. Handed it back to her, earning thanks.

 

A few hours went by and dawn was on the horizon when I head footsteps come towards the entrance where I was leaning against a rock.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked

“I’m not trying. What’s with you?” I asked her, not budging from where I was looking.

“I woke myself up. I can’t stop thinking.”

“What about?” I looked up at her as she sat down against the rocky walls of the cave too.

“About everything that happened. And everything happening right now. It’s all just a mess.”

“About flame brain? Just tell him that you love him. Seriously.” I said. She almost choked on air as she looked at me.

“You know? _How_?” she scrambled.

“I can see it.” I earned a confused look from her. “It’s obvious.” I laughed silently. Lucy hid herself more under the blanket, seemingly wanting to ask something. “You need to ask, just ask. I have a feeling on what it’s about.”

“Then why? Why do you trust _me_ and no one else? Why _me_?”

“It’s not like I don’t trust Levy and Gajeel. You just remind me of someone I once trusted with my life. The same reason I help you with Aquarius.” I started, looked at Lucy and back at the horizon. “She and another water slayer saved my life more than once.”

“Another water slayer? And who is _her_ …?” she posed the question with an underlying knowledge.

“I’m technically a water dragon. And her? That’s for you to guess. I’m sure you already figured out who.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 23 – Fire and Water – Part 3


	23. Fire and Water - Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is even more of a mess xD

Lucy continued staring at the horizon started to doze off. I also had my eyes closed. A few minutes went by when I noticed something land on my right shoulder. I peaked over and the blonde hair fanning over my arm.

“Oh jeez…” I sighed, trying to slide out of there without waking her up again and walked back into the cave waking up Natsu. “Your girlfriend is freezing, and you don’t even offer to share the sleeping bag?”

“My _girlfriend_?” he flinched. “She’s my best friend. We aren’t a couple!”

His voice sounded both a little scared and awkward. I took it as a good sign, but still impressed at how dense he was. I smirked as I sat down against the wall opposite to Natsu.

“Wipe that grin off your face!” Natsu hissed. I looked at him and deliberately grinned more and enjoyed the way he always lost his cool around me and changed from the happy-go-lucky guy to this.

“What? _Jealous_?”

“Jealous of a bitter, old bastard that’s drowning in his own pity? No way.” He sneered.

“You’d rather have me dead, don’t you?”

“You have to ask?”

“Valid point.” I got up and laughed. “Wanna have a go at killing me?” I grinned, tilting my head over my shoulder back at him, watching Happy, who was awake by now too but remained silent, land on his shoulder. He remained silent, but visibly angry. “That’s a no then.”

“Why are you so fond of Lucy?” he blurted loudly.

“She’s a Heartfilia.” I laughed. He looked weirdly at me. “You date them once, they stalk you a lifetime.”

“What?”

“Him and Anna…” Lucy appeared around the corner and walked to Natsu who gave her a confused glance.

“Good job flame brain. You woke her – “

“You and Anna?” Natsu glared at me.

I sighed and let myself fall into the cave wall and seated myself, pressing my forehead into my hand.

“Can we not do this right now? I’m really not in the fucking mood to go down that road!”

“Just spit it out already! Gajeel got answers, we deserve them too!”

I looked down at the ground remembering the first time I had thought about making her mine and how close I was to it. I started laughing to not let it get to me. It hurt that everything had gone so horribly wrong. It was infuriating every time I thought about it.

“He’s me son! Of course, I – “

“Answer!” Natsu shot at me. I grinded my teeth.

 “If those stupid scales and marks hadn’t appeared I would have married her a few weeks later…” I said a few seconds later, dropped my head, clenching my fist around my hair.

“ _What_?!”

“But no. Because of _course_ life wouldn’t let me keep _one_ nice thing!” I smashed my fist into the rock. The pain being fuel to the rage that was building up.

I sprung up and faced the same wall. “Because of _course_ ,” threw magic into the wall. Water. “everything I would gain,” and another punch as my voice got louder. “Would eventually _fucking_ _disappear_!

And no! Of _course_ , it wasn’t just that time. The _third_!! It was the _third_ time I lost _everything_ I lived for!” I shouted, not even fully conscious of how much water my magic power had materialized into and how I was practically punching and kicking a dent into the cave, ignoring the fact that my hand and feet started bleeding.

Natsu, Happy and Lucy had backed off.

“And that wasn’t even the last time.” I said, screwing my eyes shut at the pain, not even trying to calm my breathing.

“Calm down.” Lucy pleaded. “ _Please_!” She wanted to walk up to me but was held back by Natsu.

I could hear her voice as if it came from far in the distance. It was the same as hers was back then.

“And all I want to know is why!” I started shouting again, my vision going blurry. “WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?!” I screamed. “WHY ME?!”

I took a step back wiping my hand across my face to clear my vision.  I looked up and saw that I had roared and that in the trail of the roar the mountain rocks had ripped off.

“What did seven-year-old me do to deserve all this…” I muttered through a clenched jaw, trying to fight back the blur to my vision returning. I was just about to be unsuccessful when Lucy snaked her way around Natsu and approached me, pooling her hands through my hair from behind me and covering my eyes. I froze.

“No one deserves that. Especially not a child.” She said gently. I could hear Natsu’s footsteps towards me come to a halt in front of me.

“It happened daily, that people were killed. Eaten alive... Sometimes even several times a day…” I said quietly. “In Arakitashia people were always the inferior species, we were nothing but a food source. And children were spared because we could reproduce and _make_ more food…”

It was quiet for a while before I took Lucy’s hands and uncovered my eyes to look at Natsu.

“I may have murdered thousands… But I also saw thousands of people die in ways you can’t even imagine, not even by my own hands. You will never understand what it is like, when everyday you could end up being torn apart limb by limb by a dragon seeing you as lunch. You never knew which dragon was on your side or planned to kill you for dinner not even in Fiore. It got worse when dragon slayers started to become dragons. The once celebrated mages that fought for coexistence and freedom were suddenly shunned, feared and brutally hunted. It was kill… or be killed. And in a setting like this, the only one making it out alive is the one with survival instincts so brutal they border insanity. Me.”

Natsus jaw dropped a little with wide eyes, Lucy had her mouth covered and looked away almost crying, hugging Happy with her free arm.

“Sometimes I wish it wouldn’t be me and had simply died somewhere along the way.” I looked away and walked a few steps off to the entrance and sat down in a spot of sunlight, leaned against the rocks and closed my eyes, letting it rest on the rock too.

“That’s why you acted out – “ Lucy began quietly.

“I call it survival.” I cut her off.

She sat down next to me.

“We’ll fix you.” She smiled. I tilted my head to look at her.

“You’re too much like Anna.” I murmured.

“Then just pretend I am Anna.” she chuckled.

“I hope that was sarcasm or else that is a very stupid idea.” I snorted amusedly.

“I will never forgive you for what you did with Igneel and the other dragons. They were kind.” Natsu said sitting down next to Lucy. “But you’re not who I fought five years ago. You’ve changed, and you’re opening up to us. You have one chance and one chance only in my books. Don’t fuck it up, Dragon King.”

I looked back at him and nodded once. As he looked away my eyes fell on Happy who was chowing on fish on Lucy’s lap. He noticed and looked at me staring at him, as he froze and shuffled around not knowing what to do. Natsu and Lucy looked at me and Happy. Lucy opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off.

“Did you know I fucking love cats?” I blurted out making Lucy snort as Natsu choked on his own breath. Happy took on a pleased grin.

“No wonder! I’m awesome!” Happy sparked.

“Get your own, dragon punk!” Natsu coughed.

“You just ruined the mood.” She laughed.

I grinned.

 

The rest of the day went by rather quickly. I found Aquarius’ magic power rather quickly and directed Natsu and Lucy to where it was. When they came back to the cave where I was waiting, Natsu had a few scrapes but seemed to be excitedly talking to happy and Lucy was beaming with Aquarius key in her hands.

Natsu and Happy had gotten into a fight against Serena who refused to hand over the key at first despite being told there was no point of him having the key when he couldn’t even use it. So, he got cocky and agreed to hand over the key if Natsu could defeat him in combat. And the way Natsu and Happy grinned it was a good fight. The fact that Serena used to be the top of the wizard saints (before he came back and ended up being kicked out of the country for what he did) was quite a motivational boost to him.

Why it was his soul that I lost grip of is beyond me. For what I could be bothered to figure out about it, it was because his soul wasn’t exactly a dragon’s soul. Which meant it was harder for me to hold on to it.

And the other… Was a bit troublesome. Especially that digging further into it I found that I had lost hold of more souls than I thought. I was able to pinpoint a few of them and check. They had no pattern, so the souls that made it back were random and scattered everywhere across all of Earthland. And none of them were dragons, even those souls that originally were dragons. The only reason I could think of was because I was human.

Fact of the matter is that more dragon slayers popped up, and all were connected back to me somehow, and through me to the ravines. It seemed as if the ravines supplied the energy needed to materialize them back to life. And since I was human, they all were human now too.

I noticed this while I was out on the mission. I checked while waiting for Natsu and Lucy and it seems that several of the markers disappeared, making me believe that some reacted to the situation worse than I did. The disappearing of markers corresponded with smaller power increases I experienced that went by as quickly as they came. Another point of evidence that every soul that was brought back was somehow linked to me and ultimately the ravines, which I now understood as more of an archive for souls that my power level alone can’t sustain anymore. I had to check whether it had an impact on my immunity to magic or if I kept it.

But only one of the souls really mattered to me. A soul I was definitely going to find since it was the only soul that I had a personal history with.

I laughed at his way of dealing with being alive and thinking back at it, he was never the type for anxiety issues or to let someone steal fun from him.

And this guy… had a thing for certain… well… let’s call them _herbs_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 24 – 'to be updated'


	24. Secrecy of Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a bit of a break. sorry bout that. Back to writing more regularly :)

“Water and Fire, huh?” I grinned. “Now we got Fire twice.”

“What are ya talkin’ about, weirdo?” Gajeel responded swirling a drink in his class as he joined me on the couch. I lied upside down kicking my feet in the air and letting my head drop down to the floor.

“I’m gonna be in some major trouble.” I laughed.

“Pff, yes you are.” With that shoving me off the couch, sending me tumbling on the ground. “Unless you stop being a terrible example to the kids, moron.”

I picked myself up from the ground and sat back on the couch, this time how one was supposed to sit on a couch.

It has been about a week since I came back from the trip to fetch Aquarius’ key and despite things warming up a little, they went cold as soon as we got back. I didn’t even get to see Aquarius again. Lucy still hasn’t changed towards me, but Natsu, after not being forced to interact with me, went back to avoiding me and trying to get people on his side. There were people joining in in picking sides and it led to a lot of fights between Gajeel and Natsu over me. Most people however stayed distant but neutral. They rather left me alone than to risk pissing me off. The guild mostly simply tolerated my presence, but I couldn’t help noticing that as soon as I arrived, the present members tended to clear out with a few exceptions. Even Nab started going on jobs after I picked a fight with him because I was annoyed at his indecisiveness.

I was knocked out of my thoughts when we heard crying come from the twins’ room. I raised my head and Gajeel got up. Following him I peaked through the door into the room.

“Tori, what’s wrong? Had a nightmare?” Gajeel asked, picking up the little girl who was now four years old. Their birthday was back in late February.

I stood in the door looking at Yaje, the clingier of the two.

“Daddy!” she cried into his shoulder. “It was so scary!”

Levy shuffled past me.

“Oh sweety…” she gave Shutora a gentle rub on the back. “Tell us, please.”

I could feel that something was off. Somehow, I knew this wasn’t a normal nightmare, or normal dream in general. Something about the tension in the air felt awfully familiar. I couldn’t pinpoint it however.

“I don’t know…” the little girl sobbed. “It was… brother and me… and then… nice day… everything – “

“Shutora, calm down.” Levy said taking her in her arms. “Please, take a deep breath and collect your thoughts.”

The girl nodded and cuddled into Levy, taking a few breaths to calm down.

“Uhm. I don’t know… It was all blurry. It was night and fire everywhere and a massive black thing… Then you and Daddy were gone…” she said to Levy. “Yaje and I ran away but we were not going anywhere. That black thing followed us and destroyed everything and then I just was alone. Everybody was gone, just that thing chasing me.”

This sounded too familiar. Something was very wrong… I walked up to Shutora.

“It came closer and I couldn’t run! It wouldn’t stop!”

She saw me walking towards her and suddenly started almost violently trying to break free from her mother, who tried to keep her still again and make her calm down. I grabbed Shutora out of Levys arms and worked my magic. Literally.

Shutora calmed down instantly as I established the flow of magic power between me and her.

“What are you doing?” Levy asked, curious and impressed at how Shutora was instantly calmed down.

“Soft reap… I drained magic out of her body.”

“You _what_?!” Gajeel snapped back with Yaje in his arms.

“I just told you…” I responded. “Tori, was that black thing like a dragon?” I asked her as she sat up clamping her arms around her knees. I could feel the looks on Gajeels face. She nodded. “What did it look like?”

“black scales and I think it there were some blue and grey ones.” She responded. I sighed.

“Dad…?” Gajeel sat Yaje back on his bed and came up to me.

“The blue scales… Did they look like waves?” I asked. She nodded.

Shutora bopped her head to the side as I got up.

“Levy, take over.” I said, “Gajeel? Garden, right now!” and leaving. Gajeel exchanging glances with Levy before following me.

 

I sat down in the grass burying my face in hair and my hand.

“She dreamed of _you_?!” Gajeel hissed.

“I should have fucking known this would happen eventually…”

“Explain!”

“It skipped you… My magic. She inherited it.”

“I need more than that, old man!”

“My magic is a bloodline. I wasn’t always a dragon slayer you know? You have that magic power too, but it never surfaced because you were taught other magic. Wendy has it too. Everybody from my direct bloodline will have it.” I laughed, shaking my head in disbelief. “I should be fucking glad that she inherited enough of it to surface so early.”

“She inherited magic power and that makes her fuckin dream of ya?! What bullshit is that, huh?”

“She didn’t exactly dream of me. This magic has a side effect. Sometimes it causes the carriers of this magic to link, meaning she can unconsciously access my memories… She must have unlocked the magic a while ago…”

“This is some bizarre shit, dad… What do ya mean that dragon wasn’t you?!”

“That dragon was me, but the memory is originally with another dragon. In my memory that moment I saw the dragon is a gap, the moment she linked with me she must have seen my dragon form without connecting it to me, and that was what filled my own memory gap.”

“That was your memory? What in the _fucking_ world?!”

“She dreamed what I experienced in real life. You’re lucky her conscience wasn’t able to access everything that happened that night.” I looked up straight into Gajeels eyes. “What she saw was the distorted version of what I saw.”

Gajeel sat back into the grass, pressing his forehead into his hands.

“If she can access your memories, then…”

“Yea. That won’t be the last time. Is Yaje learning any magic?”

“When you appeared, he took an interest in Dragon Slayer Magic, so I started teaching him some of my magic. We’re only starting out, though.” Gajeel responded.

“Good. It won’t surface for him then. But… I think I’ll have to tell them about – “

“No! They are way too young for this!”

“Awareness is the only thing that is going to – “

“They are five years old, dad!” Gajeel shouted through his teeth as he got up.

“They need to know!” I shouted back, also getting up. I grabbed him by his shirt. “She started accessing my memory for fucks sake!”

“I don’t care!” he grabbed back at me. I could feel Levy’s presence suddenly appearing in the doorframe to the back yard. “I won’t let ya screw up my children!”

“If I wanted to screw them up, I would have done so already!”

“Like you just did with my little girl?!” he said in my face.

“ _Excuse_ _me_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 25 - Collapse


	25. Collapse

“Are ya blind or have ya not realized how interested Tori is in everything ya do?!” he shouted.

“I told you. This magic sometimes links two carriers! This is likely not the first time she saw something from my memory!”

“Ya didn’t just find out, did ya? If this influenced her, ya must have noticed it too, right?” He hissed as his grip tightened around my jacket, pulling the threads tighter around my throat. I looked away.

_Shit!_

“Answer me, ya old fool!”

Levy walked in between us, trying to push Gajeel back, away from me. She knew me going silent wasn’t usually a good sign.

“Both of you, calm down! You’re going to freak out the kids again if you continue arguing like this!” she said, now standing firmly in between us.

“He knew! And he did nothin’!” Gajeel growled angrily and frustrated.

“But fighting him isn’t going to make this situation better!” Levy protested. She turned to me. “Since when did you know about this?”

“January…” I responded lowly. It was the third week of May now.

“ _January_?! Four and a half _months_?!” Gajeel was even more furious now. I could feel Levys anger too, but she held it back.

“How likely is it that she saw… something of what you did?” she asked carefully. Gajeels eyes widened. He hadn’t thought about that yet.

I clenched my fist and took a step back.

“She hasn’t. I locked those.”

“What do you mean you locked those?” Levy asked even more carefully than before.

_Fuck. Again._

“Are ya seriously tellin’ me ya can lock your memories from her access?!”

“Yes… I – “

Before I could react Gajeel popped up right in front of me and socked me in my face with his arm turned into a metal pole. I fell backwards, left side first down in the grass, my head landing hard on the ground. I rolled onto a side holding my hand to my nose, feeling the blood run down from my nose to the side of my face and over my hand. And everything was spinning for a few seconds.

“You manipulative, old asshole.” Gajeel spat out.

“Gajeel, come on! We – “

“No. This ‘we’ is done. I’m done with this. I can’t take another second of his tantrums, manipulations.” He was throwing his hands around in angry gestures, mostly at me. But it did cause Levy to flinch a little. “His drinking issues. He manipulated us and Tori. He didn’t seal all memories despite knowing. He’s non-stop pissed out about somethin’ and won’t even talk to us! And have ya not noticed how his budget seems to always be empty and we find bottles of alcohol in his room?”

Levy dropped her shoulders and looked at me on the ground screwing my eyes shut and still holding my nose, dragging gooey threads of blood between my fingers from blowing it out so it wouldn’t run down my throat. She quickly looked away again and up at Gajeel who turned to me.

“I want ya to leave. Now!” he growled. I opened my eyes a bit to look at him. “Yes, I’m kickin’ ya out! And I don’t want to see ya here for another moment, ya got that?!”

I let my head drop again into the grass. It was later into the evening, yet still a little bright outside, but the grass was already getting damp. I closed my eyes again and released the tension in my arm from holding my nose.

“Lev did her best convincin’ me to keep goin’ and believe in ya for another day. I endured yer killin’, harmin' us, damagin' our property. But yer waitin’ and seein’ what happens to my daughter while yer not lockin’ all harmful memories is too much. I will not let ya abuse my daughter this way!”

“There’s only so much – “

“Shut up! Yer excuses get more ridiculous by the second. I want ya to leave my home!” he continued. I gritted my teeth. He picked me up by my poncho and tossed me towards the front door. “Get out!!”

He ripped the keys out of my ponchos pockets, opened the front door and shoved me out onto the street. I sat myself up against the house on the opposite side of the street when just a few minutes later Gajeel flung a large bag with my clothes, my money and whatever alcohol he could find in my room, out on the streets at my feet. A bottle inside the bag broke on impact. I immediately opened the bag and ripped out the separate bag with the money. My own blood on the bag was better than having all my money lost to spilled Alcohol.

“Ya gonna have to choose, Acnologia. I will only let ya back in here when ya agree to stop acting this way and get some fucking therapy!” He hissed and slammed the door shut, locking it from the inside.

My mind was racing.

_I went too far with this. I fucking know I went too far this time! Why didn’t I stop?!_

I slammed my head back into the building.

_Because the second you’re tripped over there’s nothing that can stop me!_

_Get out of my mind, you stupid dragon. I don’t need your shitty smartass mouth right now!_

Now my hand as well.

_If you don’t need it, I’m surprised you listen to it so much! You kill for me, you do everything I want you to do._

_Get off me!!_

My hand found a sharp spot in the stone structure and without a second thought I quickly and forcefully dragged my arm over it. It wasn’t enough to cut but it broke my skin in a few spots along the scratch, however not even deep enough for it to bleed or be painful, making me even more frustrated than I already was.

_We are two parts of the same being. You can’t just kick me out, just because you broke out of your little prison, human. I’m stronger than you._

_I don’t care!! I don’t want to listen to you!_

_Then slay me. You call yourself a dragon slayer? Do your fucking job then!_

_You’re going to regret being sarcastic!_

_Is that a death threat?_

_Possibly?_

_Bring it, human!_

I dragged my teeth over my arm, finally being able to cut through the skin. The second the pain hit me my mind cleared again. I picked up my stuff and started walking. At least my nose had stopped bleeding, but it was still painful as hell.

I didn’t need anyone to tell me that harming myself to make that dragon shut up for a while wasn’t the answer. And I knew that internal fight was pretty much my version of suicidal thoughts. Slay the dragon? Slay myself.

I ignored it despite better intuition and somehow found myself ringing the doorbell of a certain house. A few seconds later it unlocked and the apartment door on the first floor opened as I went up the stairs, trying to scrape off the blood from my nose.

“What in the world happened to you?!” she yelped in shock.

“Long story. Can you fix it?”

“Wouldn’t Wendy be better for this?” she asked as she dragged a box out of her shelves and went through it.

“Magic immunity, remember? Besides. I just found myself here.”

“You’re lucky I had Wendy teach me how to take care of these things. Sit down there.” She gestured to her maroon couch. “Head back.” She sat down on a chair behind me as I did what she said. She drenched some cotton in water and started wiping off the blood. I flinched whenever she got to my nose. It hurt even when she was barely touching it. “Natsu always gets himself in some sticky situation but I never thought you’d be the first to show up with a broken nose.” She giggled.

“Thanks for the sarcasm, Heartfilia.” I retorted, wincing a little as she inspected it closer.

“Don’t be rude or this is going to hurt more than it already will.” She aligned her fingers along my nose. I blinked nervously. “Ready?”

“For wha – AAAAAAAAAAAA!!“

She did a swift movement of her hands, I heard my nose crack a little as blood seeped out again.

“What the _fuck_?!” I jumped forward and turned around at Lucy, holding my nose, wiping off blood.

“Do you want it healing quickly or properly?” she snapped back, drenching another cotton ball in water and dragged me back to wipe off the blood that came out. She got up and went to the kitchen, returning moments later with a thin bag filled with crushed ice. She wiped my nose clean gently and taped it, before putting the ice on it. “Better?”

“Mhmm…”

“Good. How did you wind up like this?” she asked, seeing the cut on my arm, sighing as she started wiping it with the soggy cotton.

“Gajeel socked me in the face with his fucking metal pole arm.”

“No wonder your nose was in that state…” she wiped it dry, seeing as it wasn’t bleeding. As she put her stuff away she noticed the bags. “What’s… with the bags?” she asked carefully.

“Uhhh, well… I kinda got myself kicked out.” I sighed back.

“Seriously?! What in the world did you do?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it. Can I crash here? I don’t feel like sleeping on stone.” I said. Lucy shrugged.

“Got used to proper beds, didn’t you?” she chuckled. “Fine…” she sighed. “You got the couch. I was about to make some dinner. Want some?”

“Thanks, Lucy. And… yea.”

“You’re going to have the pleasure explaining this to Natsu when he breaks in tomorrow morning, because I will not!” she crossed her arms looking down on me from above, her expression stern, before turning around and disappearing into the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 26 - Black Jack


	26. Black Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a long wait but I had to rewrite the second half.

I picked up my bags from the front door where I dropped them and opened the big once. I scrambled through it, first taking out the bottles of Alcohol that were intact, then going on to drag out the clothing pieces. All while paying attention not to cut myself on the glass shards from the broken bottle, picking them out and stacking them as I found them. Lastly, I borrowed a towel and started drying my clothes. The smell of alcohol flew away as they dried, just a light reminder left behind which I was alright with.

I picked out my old cape and pants and got changed, leaving on the black shirt. I looked into Lucy’s bathroom mirror and ran a finger across the broad, thick, red tape stretched over my nose and a part under my eyes, enough to reach the marks on either side. I shook my head as I was about to focus on the marks on my face, peeking through the messy strands of hair I hadn’t brushed in days. I picked up the white sash from the ground and let it run through my fingers. Despite being the piece I had the longest the material was still considerably soft, though being broken and tattered in some spots.

I sat down on the ground and tied it around my waist again to keep the pants from falling down further than appreciated, before getting all the rest and heading back outside, dropping onto the couch.

“I’m done!” Lucys voice sounded through her flat as she went through the frame into the living room. It smelled of Pasta with a simple tomato sauce and some cheese. “It’s nothing fancy but it’s what I got.” She said as she put it onto a trivet on the couch table.

I slid off the couch onto the carpet ground. She came back a few seconds later with plates and two forks and a large spoon. She seated herself next to me using the couch as a backrest.

“You got those old clothes on again?” she asked casually as she put some food on my plate.

“Mhm.” I murmured, picking at them.

“Why? They are so damaged.”

“But wearable. Why throw it out if it’s still of use?” I said lowly, sliding the plate in front of me and stirring the sauce under the pasta.

“And everything black too.”

“For someone who mostly moves at night… I’d say it’s perfect to go unnoticed.”

“You don’t need clothes to be invisible at night” she snickered teasingly with a cocky grin. I raised a brow.

“At least I don’t get sunburns.” I grinned back.

“Touché.” she laughed as she poked into her food again picking it up.

 

“You look and act like a complete mess, you know?” she sighed. I rolled my eyes. “Let’s make this less messy.” She declared, got up and shortly after returned with a hair brush. “If you’re not taking care of yourself, someone has to, or you’ll just look like a rotten eggplant in a few weeks.”

“An eggplant…?” I laughed in disbelief, as she brushed all my hair towards her and started combing it.

“Some vegetable. And dark purple is closest to what you look like.” She laughed.

“Since when do I look a vegetable?”

“I don’t know. But the closest you get to actually looking like a vegetable is when comparing you to carrots with the greens still on.”

“ _Excuse me_?” I moped, grabbing the hair brush and going through the long hair. “Besides. My hair isn’t even green!”

“We can change that. I have a tube of magical hair dye.” She smirked.

I stared at her blankly before it faded into an evil grin.

“I just got a great idea.” I snickered. Lucy pulling into retreat.

“Uhhhh…”

 

“I can’t believe you dragged me into this!” She protested from behind her cards, next to her pencil and paper keeping score.

“Come on. This is fun, admit it!” I snickered pouring us another drink.

“Honestly? Black Jack drinking game?! And whoever wins gets to decide the other one’s hair color for the week?” she moped. Then grinned. “You’re gonna walk around pink, because you’re going up against Lucky Lucy Heartfilia!” she yelled as she slammed her cards down. “That’s a twenty-one! Three for you!”

“Seriously?! Again?! I hate that stupid rule of drinking three on a twenty-one…” I dropped my head on the table. The score was twelve to five in her favor now. I revealed my cards, a nineteen, and took three sips.

“When you tied me having to drink you under the table with me shamelessly defeating you in a Card Game you had me sold! Better think of consequences next time” she winked, sticking her tongue out from behind her grin.

“Shuffle and draw again. I refuse to go pink!”

We drew our cards. two to start, and maximum four cards total after redrawing. “Show!” I demanded.

“nineteen.” She said confidently.

“Gee sure beats these…” I put my four cards down. “Oh wait… An Ace counting eleven, a four, a two and…” I smirked. “another four. That’s twenty-one. Suck it, Heartfilia!”

Her expression turned into shock as she saw the four.

“You drew another card at seventeen with your luck record?”

“Bravery gets rewarded.” I laughed as she drank her three.

 

It turned into quite the match later on as both of us reached a point of being drunk. Instead of sitting at opposite sides of the table, we had it next to us as we squared off on the floor. We were both very drunk. Our scores weren’t even, but our Alcohol level was.

“Twenny-oooooooonneeeee!” I laughed as my hands revealed the third twenty-one in a row. “Luck runs out, blondie!”

“Juss shuffle!” she yelped as her glass slipped through her fingers just as she was setting it down, falling the rest of the way onto the table, luckily not falling over or breaking.

“Hooow?”

“I dunno… Use’r feet?”

I picked up the set of cards and shuffled it by picking up and setting back down randomly, gave two to Lucy and two to me. I picked up my cards and started bursting into laughter. So much so that I lost balance and fell over, still hysterically laughing. Lucy drew another card and started smirking.

“Guess what.” She said teasingly.

“I got another.” I blurted out in laughter as I showed my cards.

“Saaaaaaaame.” She snickered as she revealed hers. I shuffled myself up.

“Hoooowwwww?!”

“Lucky. Lucy. Heartfilia.” She laughed merrily. “Y’know what tha means!”

“Fine!”

“Rock”

“Rock”

“Paper”

“Paper”

“Scissors”

“Scissors”

“SHOOT!”

“SHOOT!”

I took a second to comprehend as Lucy jumped onto her knees in excitement.

“Paper beats Rooock. Paper beats Rooock!” she sang.

“Best two out of-ree!” I demanded, getting on my knees as well.

“That… not fair!”

“What’ch got to lose, Lucky Lucy?”

She huffed and raised her hand and we shot

“Yeeesssss I woooooooon!” she laughed. She used Scissors against Paper. “Bow to the Queen of Fortune. Mwahahahahahaaaaa!”

“Never!” I protested. She dropped on her knees right in front of me.

“Do I have to make you succumb to the throne?” she smirked challengingly.

“Eh?” I said. “Specify.” I grinned, grabbing her chin and sitting up to be higher up than her. “Always dominating gets boring after a while, but it depends on the conditions.”

“Oh doesssit?” she giggled. “Will you take orders from the Queen of Fortune then?” she grabbed my wrist to take it off her chin, grabbing a bottle and drinking straight out of it. She blinked a few times after letting off.

“I’m not so sure if fortune is allowed to command misfortune.” I flirted back at her, snaking my wrist out of her hand and grabbing the bottle of Alcohol she was just drinking out of to get a few sips as well.

“I ‘member doing so when I trapped’chu in time~” she teased. I slammed down the bottle on the table, then both of her wrists, holding them above her head.

“You weren’t the first Heartfilia to trap me with somethin’.” I laughed, biting my lip as I bumped my forehead against hers. I looked down at her and let go of her hands, that fell onto my shoulders.

“Am I the first Heartfilia to give you orders?” she smirked, narrowing her eyes, looking rather cocky.

“Naah. That’s why it should be my turn to call the shots.” I said in a lower voice than usual, tilting my head. “And first order of business?” I paused as she looked up at me. “Is to cover fortune with misfortune.” I snaked my arm around her back and pulled her in.

 

I woke up on the couch, as the sun was up high enough to shine directly in my face. I growled and turned around, hearing Lucy shuffle in her bed, and closing the second row of curtains.

And getting up! She got up! She walked past the couch and I saw her dressed in a black shirt much too large for her and rubbing her head, as she disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a cup of water.

“How are you up? What monster are you?” I growled into the pillow.

“I recover quickly. But the actual monster?” she giggled. “Hangover?”

“Don’t act like you don’t, woman.”

“Definitely not as bad as yours.” She sat down on her bed. “Do you remember what happened after that last rock paper scissors? Because I’m drawing a blank…”

I turned around to her again. Only now noticing I only had my pants on and wrapped in my cape. She didn’t remember, which I was hoping for. I did make her drink more till I was confident the level of drunk would erase some memories. But I remembered. Everything. Making out with her and…

“It’s spotty.”

“What do you remember?”

“I remember throwing my shirt at you, when you couldn’t find your pajamas. You actually put it on.”

She looked down at herself, noticing the black shirt, which on her was more like short, wide dress. I ignored myself when thinking she looked cute in that.

She sighed as she tugged on it.

“It’s quite comfortable…” she admitted.

She wasn’t suspicious at all. Considering I had pants on and she knew I always slept shirtless, that I was on the couch.

“It’s yours. I got enough of those. Besides, you look cute in that.”

_Brain?! What the fuck?!_

She looked at me.

_Well… I blame the hangover for letting that slip._

Then she smiled.

“Don’t worry. I get what’s going on in that head of yours.” I looked up. “Seeing you like this almost makes me think that you and Acnologia aren’t even the same person. You have your missteps, but you’re a comparably decent guy, as awkward as it is to admit that.”

Part of me found it suspicious how absolutely not suspicious she was of her missing memory. And considering that I made a bit of a bad choice in not informing Gajeel on Shutoras state, or that I made Lucy chug more alcohol than she could take to cover my fuck up (literally), I decided to just roll with it and hope that life wouldn’t decide to kick my nuts again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 27: Eclipse "S"


	27. Eclipse S

I didn’t notice I fell back asleep until Lucy threw a pillow over the couch directly into my face, managing to startle me enough to fall off the couch with a loud thump. I sat up only to see Lucy trying to hold in the loudest, most pleased laugh in Heartfilia history.

“I’m heading to Fairy Tail. Natsu didn’t stop by so I’m guessing he’s at the guild.” She said, now swallowing her laugh, which faded into a frown. “You’re coming with me and explain him why you were at my place because I am not responsible for this.”

“Natsu’s jealousy is none of my problem.” I responded dryly, climbing back on the couch and lying down.

She growled inwardly as she took a couple angry steps towards the couch, getting a firm grip on my cape and tugging me up. She glared at me.

“You are getting up right now! Or I am going to make this your problem.”

“Your impressions of Anna are getting better. I’m almost impressed.” I responded apathetically.

“Well…” she continued. “I guess that means that I have to tell him that you made a move on me last night.”

“What…?” I choked.

_She didn’t remember, did she? This is just her trying to play me. Right? Right?!_

“Oh, that looks like it chimed that old alarm bell in your head.”

I didn’t know what to respond, so I just cleared my throat and quietly put on a shirt and flung the poncho over my shoulders.

“I knew calling Anna and asking for advice on getting men to do what I want payed off.” She smirked.

“You two are the devil.” I said as I picked up a bottle of wine from next to my bags and chewing the screw lid off.

“Aren’t you still hungover…?” she asked as we went down the stairs, out of her house.

“I’m certainly not gonna face the firecracker sober, if that’s what you’re going at.” I sighed as I took the first large sips. Lucy sighed.

“You seriously turned alcoholic on us…”

“Let’s face it. Not even Gajeel gives a shit anymore. So why should I?”

“I care.”

“Yea, ‘cuz you’re the one that gets stuck with me when I’m drunk.” I chuckled. Bumping the bottle against her head.

Lucy let her head fall back in annoyance, grabbing the bottle right out of my hand, taking a sip herself before handing it back to me.

“If you’re going to pull me down the hole with you, I have no choice but to get Anna up your business.”

“Please don’t…” I sighed, taking another sip.

“With the amount you hang around me I’d say you’d want to get her involved, just don’t want to admit that all those years you failed to get over her.” She teased. I looked at her and back ahead.

“If this was five years ago I would be gutting you right now.” I growled, hearing my own voice tremble with built up excitement I managed to suppress for weeks now. She stopped walking and I didn’t need to look to notice that it send a shiver down her spine. I stopped too and turned to her. “So, don’t tempt me. I’m overdue.” I whispered, almost forcing myself to remain calm and turned back around and continued walking. “Cheers.” I said as I raised the bottle up as a toast and started binge drinking it.

 

The bottle was empty and I was just past the point of tipsy when we arrived at the guild and it grew immediately silent as I stepped through the door. The guild had come to develop a sixth sense of sorts that let them know when to better not stand in my way. As such the paths to the bar and up to Makarov’s office cleared out within seconds and I let out a pleased smirk.

The only one that dared to stay was Natsu, who shot me an angry glare.

“What were you doing at Lucy’s place?” he snarled after a few seconds of silence, pulling Lucy next to him.

“So that’s where ya went…” Gajeel popped up behind me before I could respond. “You reek of wine, old man.”

I huffed, being reminded of the red tape strapped over my nose.

“Don’t play like you were looking for me after obliterating my nose and kicking me out.”

“You got kicked out?” Natsu smirked. “That didn’t-“

“That’s enough out of you, Natsu.” A raspy, but stern voice held him back and Makarov worked the wheels of his wheelchair towards us. “Gajeel, Acnologia. I want you two in my office right now. Levy alarmed me of the situation and this is not a matter I want to leave untouched as in your case”, he faced me, “it could make the difference between life and death.”

“You make it sound like I can’t control myself.” I snapped back, a little angrier than intended.

“Gajeel. Swallow it.” Makarov warned just as he was about to say something. “Let us discuss this in my office. Please.”

Gajeel nodded at Makarov while I quickly shuffled past them, slowing down when I walked past Natsu.

“As for you. I suggest that instead of staying away and watching from afar you put some effort into defending your territory, or I’m going to claim it.” I hissed and sped up again right behind the bar, ripping open a drawer and picking out a knife, slamming it close and head upstairs.

When Gajeel and Makarov caught up I was already sitting in the office on the ground and throwing the knife into the wall, picking it back out and throwing it again.

“I just had that wall repaired. Please stop this.”

“Would you rather have this stuck in a human body or your holy wall?” I responded, throwing the knife a little harder.

“You are aware that you’re past due in terms of murder, aren’t you?” Makarov said after a dragged out deep breath.

“Yea.” I replied silently.

“It’s very noticeable. I have observed a certain pattern of behavior that you seem to cycle through, and this is the last stage before something happens. You get increasingly aggressive, go through a short period of silence and self-harm before you explode. What Levy told me had happened at her house matches perfectly with past episodes in said cycle.” He explained.

I picked the knife from the wall and played with it in my hand. I turned to Gajeel.

“Do you have something to tell me that I don’t already know? Or what business do you have here?”

Gajeel hesitated.

“Uhhh. Well, there’s this.” He said as he pushed a long box towards me.

“It arrived four days ago”, Makarov picked up, “and we needed some time to think about whether to give it to you now or wait until your in your next cycle. But since it’s been dragging out we decided to hand it to you to avoid you having suspicion and the last phase of this cycle collide.”

I looked over my shoulder at them.

“Would it make a difference if I had it now or later? You said it’s a cycle, so I’m going to have access to it sooner or later.” I growled, tightening the grip around the knife and lifting it up above the box. Grinning as I slammed it down into the box to drag it next to me.

I opened the box and my vision fell on four black bracelets. Even Makarov was surprised and looked at Gajeel.

“But first I want ya to promise me a few things.” He glared at me. “First. Apologize and explain the situation to my daughter. Second. We hired someone from Magnolia that is qualified for dealin’ with cases like yours, even if less extreme. Ya only get that left arm and yer lil’ souvenir once ya stop being in denial about yer self-control and let them treat ya.”

I picked up one of the black rings and looked at it.

“And this?” I snarled.

“Magic Sealing Stone. They only agreed on helpin’ us when we promised them we had ways to deal with ya should ya blow up.”

There was a good minute of silence in the room before I picked up the knife, secured its handle between my teeth and added another cut next to the one Lucy had treated just the night before. I chucked the knife away and held out my arm to the side, drops of blood falling down into the box. Gajeel hurried down next to me, hitting the back of my head before grabbing bandages out of one of the office’s many drawers and quickly wrapped them around my arm.

“At this point all I want is a left arm and a solution to the ravines problem that keeps building up on me.”

Gajeel looked at me.

“You’re… terrified of yer own magic power?” He asked carefully, but with relief in his voice that for now I was back to normal at least for now. Even if it was for all the wrong reasons.

“Not exactly. More like running out of time.”

“Have you managed to figure out more things about it?” Makarov asked from the back, dragging along another box and dropping it next to the ones with the black shackles in.

“Only the very obvious. My best guess is that it should react to an eclipse. Whether it’s a lunar or solar eclipse I don’t know. I’m hoping it’s solar.” I dropped my arm on my lap and crouched over it in pain. “Why do I keep doing this shit?” I hissed silently to myself.

“I sure hope that psych knows what she’s talkin’ about and helps ya…” Gajeel sighed.


	28. Cora

Gajeel didn’t allow me back in the house until I made things right with everything I was messing up. His constant nagging about the matter didn’t help my mood either, even when I finally got my hands on the prosthetic.

We sat down in the grass of Magnolias park, leaning against the tree when I scrambled through all the materials and notes, but strapping it on and securing it was a rather easy task. I was more worried about not being able to immediately figure out how it works and have an awkward metal slump hang down my left side. That would have genuinely been embarrassing. But it didn’t happen. Hisui’s team weren’t lying whenthey said they tried out every single detail they could think to avoid pissing me off, and the second I sparked the system of lacrima wires in the arm it responded just like a normal arm would. It was still weird after years of adjusting to one arm, but I couldn’t hide the grin when I was able to channel magic through it and actually cast a spell through the new arm, even if it took more than one attempt.

“This is pretty good.” I said through a pleased grin.

“Great, now tying ya down is even more of a problem.”

“Don’t ruin this for me, Gajeel.”

He sighed.

“I want you to know I wasn’t planning on all of this happening. I thought I could handle Shutora, and I guess what I pulled wasn’t the best choice I could have made.”

“It’s rare seeing ya admit to somethin’” he spoke. “Look. Yer not a terrible parent. Heck if ya were I wouldn’t even let ya be around her.”

“It’s just weird.”

“What is?”

“Everything.” I stopped playing around and crossed hands behind my head, looking up at the cherries that were already a mid-shade of red. “It’s unfair how being born just two decades apart on different continents made such a difference.”

“Yer talkin’ ‘bout us?”

“Mhm. The western continent was pretty much just one massive serve of food for the dragon race.”

“Arakitashia? You were born in Arakitashia?!”

“Have I not told you? I thought I did, maybe someone else. But… yea. South-Eastern part. I wonder if the ruins are still there…”

“Sounds like the next family holiday is gonna be a long trip.” He smiled.

I looked over at him.

“I don’t think confronting me with that is such a good idea.”

“Actually,” a woman, dressed in office pants and a blazer approached us. Her light brown hair pinned up, and with her fancy handbag looking a little too sophisticated. “his idea was not too far from what I would suggest you do.”

“And you are…?”

“Miss Cora? What are ya…” Gajeel jumped up. “I thought ya would avoid us without the sealin’ stone.”

“I just took a walk after lunch and saw you two there. You looked calm, so I figured it would be safe to at least introduce myself.” She smiled at Gajeel, then sitting down in the grass in front of me, making sure her blazer was laid out neatly like a blanket under her. “Cora Lietta. Nice to meet you.”

“Don’t lie. It’s never nice to meet me.” I growled.

“You’d be surprised.” She chuckled. I frowned at her. “Well, you know what my occupation is, but I admit to having taken a lot of interest in the psychology of murderers.” She explained. The way I sighed and slumped down into the grass should have been her red flag. It certainly was for Gajeel and I could tell he tensed up a little.

“So, I’m guessing you just wanna dissect me mentally. Wonderful.” I snarled sarcastically. “If you want morbid details, don’t bother with me. I’m not that creative.”

“I don’t want those unless you want to tell me. I merely look for a pattern in your behaviour. Habits so to speak. I know our first session isn’t for another two days but since we’re on the topic already…” she opened her bag and pulled out what looked like a booklet and handed it to me.

“It’s blank…”

“And you’re going to fill it.” She added. “Write down everything that happens that is significant to you. Don’t bother with putting a neat order in. Just as it comes to mind, but keep it chronological.”

“What does it help you to have a mix of scrambled shit and detailed memories?”

“Patterns, remember? I want to refrain from trying to diagnose anything until I find a clear pattern in your behaviour and actions. Makarov already informed me of a sort of cycle you go through of being calm, then in time getting moody and increasingly aggressive until something trips you over the edge and-“

I slammed the side of my fist into the tree, obliterating a larger bug underneath.

“What the hell did the bug do to ya?!” Gajeel yelled disgusted as I dragged my hand over the trunk to wipe off the greenish slimy blood of the bug.

“It annoyed me.”

“The bug…? It’s a bug.” He sighed in disbelief.

“Not the insect, stud face.” I hissed in return as I got up. “This Lady did!”

“I’m sorry if I took a step too far. But the point of this all is that you learn to deal with it and surpress the morbid thoughts through means other than drowning it in alcohol or hacking up your right arm.

“I get the cuts but if I wanna drink, I’m gonna drink. End of discussion.”

“Just know that you have my respect for fighting your outbursts. The fact that according to Makarov you’ve managed to remain in a somewhat steady state of mind of being overdue, but not exploding speaks volumes.” She explained again. I got up and just started walking off. “I can already tell from this little, that you’re someone dependable, so I’m sure that you'll have written down everything up to this point until we meet in two days.”

I didn’t turn around and simply kept walking.

 

“I should probably also let ya know that my family may not be the only reason he tries to avoid murder.” Gajeel said.

“Please, tell me. It may be important.”

“Yea. There’s a good chance it may involve a woman named Anna Heartfilia.”

“Miss Heartfilia? I’ve heard a lot about her.”

“She and Lucy are probably the most well-known blondes Fiore has to offer after all.” He continued. “Anyway. I only see it when my father speaks to Lucy, but I can’t shake the feelin' that the reason for his interest in Lucy is entirely based on him bein' unable to forget Anna.”

“I CAN STILL HEAR YOU, METAL HEAD!” I shouted over my shoulder as I was heading up the stairs to the road.

Gajeel simply smiled awkwardly and shook his head.

“You’re saying he once loved her?”

“Still does. Please keep that a secret.”

“Of course. I have to, or I lose my job. Thank you for telling me. It sounds wrong to say that but in his case, it might just be a good thing. Being capable of love should at least lessen the chance of me being unable to do anything.”

“Huh?”

“Well. Being capable of love and compassion should rule out Psycho- and Sociopathy which is most common among murderers statistically. That doesn’t imply he shows no traits of it. No one falls completely into one spectrum. But if those two aren’t the major factors then chances are good that he responds well to medical treatment.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I know of the Heartfilia family being entangled with your father… I don’t suppose Miss Heartfilia knows about him being alive?”

“No, his existence is kept a secret within Fairy Tail. They even went so far to set up a permanent rune that ensures no knowledge of his life being able to exit this town.”

“I suggest you inform her. If he does love her like you say, we may need her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 29: The Break - Part 1


	29. The Break - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is rather text heavy. Apologies for that. But I guess it works with Cora's task of Acno having to write down stuff for her to find patterns. So yea. To clear this. Yes this story is written out in a way that whoever is reading this can feel like they are reading that very notebook. As for the prologue chapter being in front of everything, that will be explained in a later chapter.

I dropped by Levy’s house. Since Gajeel wasn’t home she let me in, and even allowed me to store some things in my basement room. I dumped the box the prosthetic came in and the Stellanium sword on my bed and came back upstairs to find Levy set down a bowl of warmed up soup. The way they think is best to handle me varies greatly, Gajeel more on cornering me until I have no choice but to oblige, and in a way force me onto the right path, while Levy is dead set on treating me with as much respect and gentleness she can bring up in hopes of de-escalating situations to avoid me running myself into the ground and choose the right thing before it even goes so far as being cornered.

Both ways worked, sometimes more or less but in combination it in retrospect felt like it did more damage than good. It may work for parenting a child to have two different frame of minds, in this case Gajeel ensuring things get done, while Levy ensures motherly love. But realizing that using the same strategy to deal with me wouldn’t happen for another two months.

Those two months were wild. Natsu and Lucy started dating just one week later, which came to no surprise as it was only a matter of time until they broke their silence to one another. It was awkward. Especially since I played a role in both of them getting it on. At least Natsu was back to the way most people feared was lost when I showed up. I wasn’t surprised to learn he still held his grudge against me, but he kept it to himself more often. They stopped arguing and the guild felt a lot less tense when people got invested in his childishness instead of paying too much attention on me. The big surprise came early July when Lucy found out she somehow got pregnant despite both of them being careful. After an initial shock they shrugged it off and were genuinely happy with the situation. They had known each other for almost a decade so it didn’t take years of dating for them to know they would work out. Lucy’s worries flew out the window the second Natsu started treating her like a Queen.

I also explained the situation of Shutora inheriting my blood line’s magic power to Levy and both kids. While Yaje was a little jealous of his sister, shutora seemed amazed but also a little scared of it. Gajeel got what he wanted and allowed me back in the house. The kids were going to start school in early September, so we spent as much time training them as possible. Shutora got stronger at a pace that reminded me a lot of my own sister who my mother referred to as prodigious, while Yaje was more like me. The one that lagged behind and never seemed to be able to quite get it right without at least five attempts. Both kids were extremely close with their parents but considering how I spent most of my time at the house teaching Tora, Yaje started picking more fights with his peers and even me to get my attention, which didn't go unnoticed by Levy and Gajeel. Fights he would either get in trouble for or lose which didn’t help the situation. It became more complicated than any of us hoped.

Anna had been informed another week later but how she reacted was kept from me. But I could feel the relief in the guild of finally being able to invite her again without having to arrange a million different things to avoid her picking up any traces of me. I still chose not to come out of hiding when I noticed her presence pop up in Magnolia. The closest I’d been to her was when I hid all the way at the top of the Fairy Tail building on the same rooftop section I slept in when I first came here, while Anna was in the building catching up with the Dragon Slayers, especially with Wendy. The only thing they slipped to me was that Gajeel told her that he and Anna were the only ones aware of us being Wendy’s biological parents. Not even Wendy knew, even though she became a little suspicious of why even I had started paying more attention to her.

Gildarts had dropped by the guild for a while before continuing his quest. Since he previously wasn’t there he had been kept up to date and despite what I did to him he reacted surprisingly mature when we came face to face. And I’m saying mature, but he forced me into a drinking contest in which by the end when we were both drunk we acted more like good friends than enemies that tried to kill each other off. Me teasing him by having the superior prosthetic in all categories and being the only one able to take him head-on in a magic battle and win. Him teasing me with being taller and being able to repeatedly overpower me in terms of physical strength even going as far as carrying me upside down through the guild when I was too drunk to really put up a fight. I didn’t want to know how much of that was recorded on people’s storage lacrimas until we both freaked out at seeing it pulled on a massive hologram for the entire guild to see and laugh at. Those video tapes were the only reason I even remembered what happened.

 

In all those rather positive things there were two things that remained bad or got worse. Each week had a hole around the time Cora was trying to figure me out in which I had practically not a single completely sober minute. By the end of the two months I was still overdue, despite being forced to confront what happened to me as a kid making me more and more aggressive each time she managed to force me to recall more details about it. According to her the first step to overcoming potential trauma, as she called it, was to face it head-on as painful as it may be. I knew that she had gotten Anna involved and allowed her to watch after she was informed Whether she was watching I couldn't tell.

But the first session was the calmest of all, despite not being calm at all. She read through the notes I gave her before the first session and was surprised at the 27 separate entries I even gave little names to. She took interest in how I attempted putting order in despite the entries often being a little difficult to grasp. It took her less than an hour before the first session even started to be able to correlate my drops in mood and self-control with my memories. Cora complemented me on how I even remembered dialogue texts that were almost a year past. The more she was surprised when she learned of the gaps in my memory from over 400 years past. Gaps in memory that weren’t explained by simple memory loss as every time she tried reaching closer to them she told me I showed signs of panic attacks.

“Alright. Can you recall anything that happened?” she asked carefully after getting the lacrima to record dialogue and opened her note book ready to take notes on my behaviour. I sat cross-legged on a chair with the four shakles strapped around my wrists and ankles. That already made me anxious and she picked up on it.

“I can recall the reason why I was so wary of these.” I huffed, clanging them against one another.

“What happened.”

“I don’t know. All I know is that I had these on and it was hell.”

“You remember why you are wary of magic sealing stone but yet don’t remember what happened?”

I nodded. She wrote down a few notes and thought for a few seconds.

“Okay, how about we take this from the beginning in chronological order. You say in these notes that you lost your parents at age 7. It should be the root of everything. So, what do you recall.”

I remained silent as I closed my eyes. The magic sealing stone not allowing me to think straight since it took away my elevated senses that came with dragon slayer magic. I noticed my own thoughts washing away as I instinctively tried to pick up on the tiniest noises and smells in the room, almost desperately seeking for the magic power patterns of my blood line’s magic that allowed me to have a fuzzy mental image of what is around me. But with the stone, it was just black. A void of nothingness.

“Get these off of me.” I said as I opened my eyes again, noticing my own voice shake a little. Cora took notes again.

“Try to recall what h-“

“Get these off!” I yelled. Clutching my hands around the chair I was sitting on.

“Okay. But for that I need us to move to the underground rooms of this place.” She agreed. She rather had me in a comfortable, less sterile environment but she knew if she were to force me too much she’d risk her own safety. She gave a quick notice to the head of the department she worked in to let them know and headed downstairs. It was a big clean room split in half by runes and a series of spells that were set up after notice that would allow for magic casting without going beyond the borders of the runes. She gave me the key to unlock the shackles. She allowed me to take them off once they made sure the runes and spells were flawlessly cast around my half of the room.

She took notice of how I immediately calmed down significantly once the stones were off. She still reminded me that from time to time we would keep them on so that we would be able to set these in a better environment. For now, I sat down on the white ground and had a look through the room. It had no windows and the colours were bright and pale. She wasn’t kidding when she said sterile.

“Now back to recalling. Please try again.” She asked from her chair. I put my hands on the ground and closed my eyes. The mental image was clear inside the runes, outside was fuzzy but I was able to see something, even if it was blurry. It still left me anxious, but I had my senses back and not a black void around me. “What happened?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 30: The Break - Part 2
> 
> Side note: For the full story and complete memory, as well as complete and thourough explanation of this magic bloodline, read my Manga on his backstory. There everything is in it's full length while here I will merely touch upon it to give an idea. But the full story will never be entirely revealed. So for additional food for thought and possibly better context, the Manga is the way to go :) Chapter 4 will be out within the next 2 weeks and it does have a lot of information on this magic power. Following link directs you to my profile on SmackJeeves where I post the manga.  
> (http://www.smackjeeves.com/profile.php?id=311197)


	30. The Break - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say other than I enjoyed how fluent this chapter was to write out.

“Stop staring holes into the air and try to concentrate. What happened back then?” she asked again after I gave no response. “Can you hear me?”

I looked at Cora through the bunch of runes and magic circles that were set up to keep whatever magic I use suppressed and nodded. It was the end of June now. She still hasn’t been able to make me recall anything, but she hasn’t discussed anything with Levy and Gajeel either. I could hear her just fine but I neither wanted to remember nor was I able to. I was able to recall it partially when Shutora had that dream, but now it was gone again.

“I… don’t know. And I don’t think I want to know.” I said silently.

“Okay. What is the last thing you remember before your memory drops out?” she asked calmly. A little too calm. She was professional after all, so anything suggesting impatience wouldn’t be appropriate in her field. I got that, but it was still irritating considering I was used to getting forced to something or be left alone. Just not this unsettling focus on what I don’t remember, but yet do remember.

“I remembered a while ago what it was…” I pressed my hand against my forehead as I leaned back against the wall and stared down at the ground.

“Yes. You wrote it down in the notebook, even if the only thing you wrote down was the dream your granddaughter had.”

“I… did?”

I looked up at Cora looking down at her and my notes. She looked at me for a second before looking back at the notes and tapping her pen on the pages and her saying something without making a sound. I tried reading it, but I couldn’t through the runes blocking part of my vision.

“I need to confirm something, so let me change the topic for a while. You wrote a few times that you let your mind talk to itself sometimes.” She said with a sly concern in her voice.

“Does it matter? Everyone talks to themselves sometimes.”

“This is different. You clearly distinguish yourself from your dragon form. This appears to be a conversation between you and an alter ego which may also explain why you sometimes remember and forget at an inconsistent rate.” She explained. I just squinted my eyes a little and looked at the marks on my arm. “Now this is just a gut feeling I have, but I want to explore it a little. Do you mind if Gajeel and Levy join us for this? Their input could give me a few more clues since the notebook is very subjective considering it is your point of view.”

“Allow me to doubt that gut feeling.” I huffed slightly amused.

“Let me elaborate where I’m coming from. Conversations between someone that is definitely you. But the other side is usually disagreeing with you or even arguing with you. This is more than simply talking to yourself or discussing something.” She was stern in her voice. I looked up at her. “Further Gajeel and Levy have already said that you seemed to have suddenly changed from killing without a second thought to even trying to suppress it.”

“You’re saying…?”

“I’m saying you have an alter ego that shares most of your memories except for whatever your mind labelled as traumatic. This is also consistent with how you suppress this postulated alter ego. I’ll explain once Levy and Gajeel are here, so they can confirm.”

“This is ridiculous!” I got up and hit both fists against the rune wall. It lit up on impact. “Let me out of here.” I growled.

Cora opened the door and both Levy and Gajeel came in. I noticed a third person in the backroom located behind the mirror. I saw it very faintly though my magic power but the way the runes were set up it didn’t allow for anything more, just noticing that there was someone. I looked at the reflection I saw in the mirror and focused on it.

“Dad.”

“What?!” I turned around at Gajeel.

“You just looked at the mirror the same way as when you’re crumbling.” Levy said carefully

“Crumbling?!” I hissed at her. “I’m not crumbling! I’m _fine_!”

“Said the dragon in midlife crisis…” Gajeel said sarcastically.

“You’re not helping, Gajeel!” Levy snapped back at him.

Both turned to me sitting back against the wall looking up. I was angry enough that I noticed I almost was about to roar. I noticed magic coming out with every breath like small steam clouds.

“You need to learn when your jokes are appropriate, son.” I whispered.

“Sorry…”

I shook my head and took a deep breath.

“Anyway.” Cora stepped back in. “Can you confirm what I said?”

“In fact, we can.” Levy answered. “We both witnessed several times how explosive he is and only calms down when he hurts himself or drinks.” She touched the rune wall with one hand, looking at me. “I’m worried about him. Not every wound leaves a scar, but it has been getting worse, and there already are a few scars visible.”

“Yes. This is exactly what I suspected.”

“So, you’re saying that I have this alter ego that just swoops in and tries to wreck me?” I got up and looked Cora right in the eyes.

“It’s the reason you feel the need to cut yourself in the first place,” she answered, looking right back at me. “or why you go through that cycle. You are unstable while the identity of your dragon form is stable. You constantly are in a state of switching back into that identity and to stop it you harm it. But that means you harm yourself may it be through pain or alcohol.”

The room stayed silent for a bit. Levy looked at me concerned after receiving Coras conclusion. Gajeel as well, but noticeably being impressed at what Cora managed to conclude after just three sessions.

“Let me out of here.” I hissed silently, looking down at Cora standing directly in front of me on the other side of the runes.

She looked back at me and sighed after a little giving me a nod.

“I suppose this is all we can do today. We’ll aim for longer sessions the more used you are to this setting.” She said. “I’ll deactivate the runes once the magic sealing stone is back on.” She pointed at the four black shackles I tossed into the corner together with the key.

I looked at them for a second and gave a short but focused glare at the mirror.

“Let me out.” I hissed a little louder.

“I can’t do that. We have an –“

“I don’t care!” I yelled at her and slammed my fists back into the runes, pressing my forehead into them as well. “I have no interest in getting chained up with those again. So, let me the _fuck_ out of this stupid cell!”

Levy and Gajeel took a step back as Cora continued to try to argue her point in the professional polite manner. I started looking at the runes and took a few steps backwards getting a proper look at the runes. I could see how Cora tried to talk to me, but I stopped hearing anything. All I was able to do was focus on the runes.

I noticed I was able to read them partially and started getting irritated. They had runes up that wouldn’t allow form change. I continued reading what I understood, not noticing what I was doing or what happened on the other side. All I saw at this point was someone trying to talk to me.

I was ripped right out of my thoughts by a high-pitched screech that immediately made me fall on the ground covering my ears. Gajeel was covering his as well while Cora and Levy were simply tensed up. I looked up at the white speakers hung up in the room.

“STOP THIS NOISE!!” I screamed back. It stopped with a crackle.

“ **Then put on the magic sealing stone, right now!** ” she said through the microphone. I tensed up the second I heard the voice. Distorted or not I could tell who it was. “ **Or I’m coming in that dainty little room of yours and make you. And you know that is not going to end pretty for you, mister!** ”

I got up and looked at the mirror. I knew perfectly well who it was and what she meant. If there was one person that dared pick a fight with me, it was her.

“ **They say you changed, right? So, listen. You swallow your anxiety and put on the stone. I’m counting to three. If they aren’t on by then, I’m going to do your ears a little favour with this sweet tool here!** ” she said with an undertone of superiority and made the microphone screech again. “ **That was a little taste. Now I think I made myself clear enough.** ” she paused. I noticed myself back off a step covering my ears again.

“ **ONE!** ”

I stared at the mirror, seeing right through my own reflection. I could practically see her. Levy, Gajeel and Cora looked back and forth between me and the mirror. Cora shuffled to grab her notes and started writing. My reaction was pretty noteworthy, I admit. I had refused to put them on before but Cora’s way of dealing with it was to let me calm down enough until I either chose to put them on or let me come to a point where I was not going to blow.

“ **TWO!** ” she sounded through the microphone. “ **You’re running out of time, remember, I can turn up the volume by a factor of 10 if I wanted. That won’t be pretty for you.** ”

I thawed out, quickly looked around, seeing the other three making an escape for the back room, then seeing the four bracelets and hurried over. All I could think about was getting that stone on before I heard three. It was a childish trick, but the stakes were high. Dragon Slayer ears are more sensitive than anything and this woman knew how to make an advantage a disadvantage. And she knew damn well how to handle me.

“ **THR–** “

“STOP!” I screamed just as the last of the stone clicked around my wrist. I pressed my hands on my ears as hard as I could.

It stayed silent. The only thing I heard was myself breathing, my own blood being pumped through me and the speaker system shut off. I dropped to the floor and was just lying there. As the runes and magic circles disappeared, I looked at the door to the back room open and her stepping out approaching me, her hair perfectly pulled up as I remembered her. I didn’t move at all. I couldn’t.

She crossed her arms as she sat down in front of me. She was perfect in every aspect to me and I hated how I realized how much Gajeel was right about loving her.

“Anna…”

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Break - Colateral Damage


	31. The Break - Collateral Damage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for ghosting for almost 2 months. Life happened. But things are going pretty smooth now. I started Manga School, stopped fighting with my parents over my future and so on.  
> Also, chapter 4 of the Manga is out! Please check it out, Chapter 5 is already in the works.

“You have no sense of when to just stay dead, do you?”

…

She sighed as she held her hands in front of her face. I simply let my head drop to the floor.

“I guess I can’t blame you for your instincts.” She admitted. The door in the back opened back up and the others came out again.

“Anna…” Levy came up to her, closely followed by Gajeel.

“Sit up.” Anna demanded. I did with a bit of hesitation. “Look at me.”

I looked up from previously not daring to make eye contact. Her eyes were pretty much radiating with anger. The silence that followed was almost unbearable. I didn’t know what to say to her. Like a part of me knew I had no right to say anything right now. It was Cora who broke the silence.

“You two-“

“Stop.” Anna interrupted her by holding her hand up. “Listen to the silence.”

Cora and Levy looked at each other somewhat confused. Gajeel was about to speak up but was just as quickly shut own by Anna as Cora was.

“Yea… I can hear you…” I whispered after a few seconds of silence. The fury in her eyes started to fade in favour for sadness. I knew why. It was an ability I lost when I started going crazy, and the fact that I was able to do it now… I don’t know.

_“You can hear me again.”_

I nodded. I saw the confusion on the others’ faces. The whole thing about this ability was that only I was able to hear what she said. Or rather, what her soul said. The ability to read souls is one aspect of my magic power. The bloodline’s magic power. It’s not the easiest to learn, but…

 _“So, you still love me.”_ I read as she dropped her shoulders and sighed. _“I shouldn’t be surprised. The part of you that can hear me never left.”_

“Why would he leave? He never had a reason to.” I whispered back.

 _“He… You’re only half conscious, are you?”_ she shook her head.

“He’s stronger than me. There’s not much I can do.”

Cora sat down, observing us and taking notes. Seeing two people communicate like this was most likely new. I know that when we first noticed I could do this, our own peers were confused as hell.

_“Who is primarily conscious right now?”_

“I… I can’t tell. Switching between both is… did I even switch?”

 _“You did. You addressed yourself as he, but both times you did, -he- was not the same personality.”_ She folded her hands in front of her mouth and rested her head on her thumbs.

“I figured that after such a long time I wouldn’t even notice it anymore…” I looked down at the ground. “Except for a few things our memories are pretty much the same now.”

It remained silent for a while again. The only sound in the room was Cora’s pen scratching across the paper from writing. She tapped the pen on her notes a few times before she looked at me, and then Anna.

“Miss Heartfilia.” She said. All of us looked at her now. “You are aware of more than I am here, but I have a hunch of what is going on.”

“So do I.” I replied. “I knew what was going on with me before Gajeel dragged me here. I just… didn’t want it to be a thing.”

“Grandeeney was first to realize what was going on.” Anna continued. “She noticed how his random memory loss at times was more than just terrible selective memory.” She paused for a little. “But no one ever thought that all three of them would morph in such a way that switching between two was so fluent.”

“Three?” I asked.

“There might have been even four. Sometimes you went out of character for all three of you.”

“I guess that confirms it. Mostly at least.” Cora sighed. Then turning to me. “I’ll… need to run a few tests on you to be absolutely certain, but with what I caught from Miss Heartfilia, there’s little doubt in my mind. You have more than one personality, it seems.”

I sighed. I knew all along what was going on, I just didn’t want to be like this. Even though the fact that I literally talked to my other self sometimes and even harmed myself to make it shup was the biggest red flag I was aware of.

\--

And throwing the pen through the room didn’t help either. But the more I write down, the more I become aware of just how much I was ignoring all of this. Not just now, but 400 years ago too. I stopped writing after I talked about ignoring red flags. I don’t want to write it down. I don’t want this. I guess… at least my memory doesn’t just drop out all the time anymore. But how selective it is it doesn’t help either. I can remember what people said, and even what certain people said when I wasn’t around. I guess at the time I was able to hear Lucy the same way as Anna. I guess that’s how I randomly was aware of her talking to Mirajane. This ability is weird.

But then again, I sometimes don’t remember anything. And sometimes it feels like the only reason I even remember everything is because I wrote it down and sometimes flip through the pages. Now desperately trying to find something that tells me that I didn’t switch all the time. But even I could tell who was writing. It isn’t consistent at all. The one that had a genuinely amusing conversation with Levy and Gajeel over metal piercings and ripping out scales was not the same one that seconds later rammed a sword into a corpse.

Anyway. I calmed down I think. Back to where I was.

\--

“I remember a time where you stopped switching at all.” Anna turned to me. “When the person I knew couldn’t break through those black scales. The same time I decided to join the council’s plan to hunt you down…” she paused. “No, not you. To hunt Acnologia.”

Cora got up and turned to Levy and Gajeel. She started explaining the situation to them, but I was more focused on Anna.

“How dangerous are you still?” Anna asked me.

“I… I don’t know.” I looked at my right harm and huffed. “It depends whether you mean being a threat to others or to myself…” I shook my head as I laughed at myself.

Anna seemingly noticed the little scars too. She took a deep breath.

“At least Acnologia isn’t stable anymore. There are cracks in the scales, figuratively speaking.” Cora hopped back into the conversation.

“No wonder you were so unpredictable ever since you showed up again.” Gajeel huffed.

“Well…” Levy sat down in front of me, smiling as she put her hands on my shoulders. “At least we know the reason for it. And I’m sure the entire guild will be glad to know that the guy they aid in his alcoholism isn’t the same guy that stole seven years of our lives.”

“Your positivity is a mystery to me…” I blankly told her.

“Even I admit to taking a bit of comfort in knowing that the man I once loved isn’t entirely responsible for genocide.” Anna said. “Still, I’m not sure I will ever be able to overlook those crimes, but we all have a chance to start new because of this disorder destabilizing Acnologia. And I guess I’m to blame for it, considering both of my plans to rid the world of you failed.”

“Can I say I’m glad that for once in your life you stuffed up?” I laughed lightly.

The slap in the face I received from her afterwards was entirely justified.

“This isn’t the time for twisted humour.” She hissed. “This disorder is serious. You are just as much a threat now as you were under a sociopathic, but stable personality.”

“She’s right.” Cora added. “Dissociative Identity Disorder is almost untreatable. It takes a lot of effort to even begin to consciously be able to remain in one personality. Let alone a harmless one. _Your_ effort.” She spoke to me in the most serious tone I heard from her yet. “Which means several things. First and foremost, we must get rid of your alcoholism. We can’t work this out if you’re drunk most of the day.”

I simply growled.

“Don’t underestimate what it takes to break out of an addiction.” Gajeel sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 32: The Break - Escape


End file.
